


Come to a Party With Me

by aonaran



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Agatha Just Wants To Do Science, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Kidnapping, Canon-Typical Derring-Do, Canon-Typical Violence, Dogfight AU, Dogfight AU Plastered On Top of a Canon Collegiate Setting, Gil's Pickup Game is Cringey, I Learned Something New: Dogfight AUs Are Not About Actual Dogs, Multi, Several Clanks Were Harmed in the Making of This Work, Tarvek Contemplates Murdering His Father, canon-typical danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-22 12:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22082725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aonaran/pseuds/aonaran
Summary: It was supposed to be an all-around good time for the exchange students at Transylvania Polygnostic University. Just a way to blow off some steam before finals. Get a bunch of yokel sparks from Beetleburg together, set them loose at a party, have a good chuckle at the chaos.Gil didn't count on actually finding a date for the evening, but when fate drops the bumbling Miss Clay into his lap he isn't complaining. Tarvek didn't count on a secret Heterodyne Princess OR his father showing up to the "Dogfight" he didn't want to host in the first place, and now he's got to deal with both. Agatha didn't count on an invitation to a party, and she has no idea what's in store.
Relationships: Agatha Heterodyne/Tarvek Sturmvoraus/Gilgamesh "Gil" Wulfenbach
Comments: 59
Kudos: 145
Collections: Girl Genius Spark-Exchange Yuletide 2019





	Come to a Party With Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Purrs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purrs/gifts).



> Written for the 2019 Spark Exchange. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Disclaimer: I had to look up what a DogfightAU was at first, and while initially I wanted to stick closer to that plot I'm pretty sure we careened right out of DogfightAU into action-adventure romp by about the halfway mark.)
> 
> (Disclaimer: DogfightAUs have nothing to do with actual dogs or with any degree of animal cruelty. Nor do they have anything to do with aerial combat. DogfightAUs are based on the 1991 film and early 2010's musical of the the same name.) 
> 
> Obligatory warnings for talk of the Summoning Engine, mentions of What Happened to Anevka (TM), Aaronev Wilhelm Sturmvoraus VI being creepy about that whole "bringing back your dead girlfriend" thing, Aaronev's bad parenting, threats of violence and kidnapping, some minor injuries caused by muggings, death rays, and toboggan crashes, gratuitous violence against clanks, the mugging from chapter 1 of the comic, and alcohol.

**SCENE THE FIRST, Transylvania Polygnostic University Campus, Morning**

It’s just after Tarvek’s first class of Friday morning (Advance Alchemical Inquiry into Non-Euclidean Fluid Dynamics) when Gil catches up with him in the east chemistry quad.

“What’s this I hear about your end-of-semester party tonight?” Gil asks without preamble, throwing an arm around Tarvek’s shoulder. They’re walking in the same direction, towards the Wright Annex for a guest lecture on the applications of supranormal construct perception of the light spectrum for their Ekphrastic Sparkworks of the Pre-Classical Period class.

The lecture is a formality at this point, with finals just around the corner. If the two page response paper wasn’t worth the extra credit Professor Garrity assigned, he doubts either of them would be attending. Not that Tarvek needs the extra credit… but when Gil made noises about attending the talk, Tarvek found himself penciling it into his own schedule.

Tarvek doesn’t know Gil’s plans for winter break, only that they probably won’t be seeing each other until the spring term starts up at the Institute of the Extraordinary back in Paris. Tarvek himself will be stuck in Sturmhalten for the duration of break, and it seems he’ll have a furious Anevka to contend with. Two weeks of letters to her have gone unanswered, and he has no idea how he’s managed to slight her so badly that she would eschew their regular correspondences. He’s sure he’ll find out when he returns home, probably with an attempt at poisoning his lunch. She’s thoughtful like that. It’s always possible their mail is being intercepted, but no matter.

"It’s not ‘my’ party, Holzfäller,” Tarvek tells Gil. “One of the Wittenburg exchange students on the floor above mine proposed it, and I offered to coordinate refreshments for the evening–”

“And the next thing you know, you’re in charge of the food, and the décor, and the guest list, and the seventeen-tier chocolate fountain, and the wait staff–”

“There’s no wait staff!” Tarvek insists. A shrug of his shoulders fails to dislodge Gil’s arm, so he leaves it in place as they walk. He does not mention the five-tier chocolate fountain he’d built last night, nor the clockwork barista who will supply coffee, or the serving clanks he had dug out of the dorm’s old butler’s pantry. Those don’t count.

The two of them skirt around a detachment of Dr. Beetle’s patrol clanks – the machines that comprise The Watch are practically antiques, and lately they’re prone to trapping unfortunate students in an endless loop of demanding the student’s ID number, promptly dropping the values from their working memory, then demanding the student’s ID number again. Ad infinitum. He and Gil have no time for that if they’re going to make it to the lecture. They don’t want to get held up in this weather either. Temperatures dipped below freezing last week and haven’t recovered since. The sky overhead is a close, uniform grey. It hasn’t snowed in Beetleburg yet this semester, but it looks like today it might.

“But it _is_ a party?” Gil asks once they’ve cleared the clanks.

“It’s a handful of college students drinking terrible wine and blowing off steam before finals – something you’re no doubt familiar with.”

“That’s not fair, Sturmvoraus, I’ve been good!” Gil protests. “I’ve hardly destroyed any property while we’ve been here. No getting caught up in stopping some mad spark’s rampage against the united federation of cheesemongers. No lounging in dens of iniquity for me, except on Saturdays. And Tuesdays, if you count the Harmonics Theory classroom in the music department.”

“Oh, I definitely count the music department as a den of iniquity. But your behavior during this last semester has shown a marked degree of improvement over your conduct in Paris,” Tarvek concedes. “It must be all those humanities requirements you’re only just catching up on. Another five years here and you’ll be ready for re-introduction to polite society.”

“Speaking of ‘polite society…’” Gil wiggles his eyebrows.

“Oh, this evening’s festivities are hardly fit for ‘polite society.’” Tarvek unhooks Gil’s hold from his shoulder as they climb the steps leading up to Wright, ignoring how the warmth of Gil’s arm is replaced by the chill of autumn-turning-winter. “It’s a dogfight.”

Gil stops in his tracks. “Those are– wait, those are real?” he asks, incredulous.

“Did you think they weren’t?” Tarvek glances over his shoulder to watch Gil’s expression. Gil takes the stairs two at a time to catch up.

“Maybe?” Gil admits.

“They’re real,” Tarvek sighs as they pass beneath the Transylvania Polygnostic University crest that hangs over the door of the annex’s grand entrance hall. The one above the doors to Wright Annex is stately, patinated copper, half a meter high, like on most of the buildings in the school. The sole exception is Lab Complex No. 1. The crest over the front entrance to Lab Complex No. 1, where Dr. Beetle does most of his own work, is gold plated and nearly as tall as the door itself. “They aren’t really my preferred way to spend an evening, but I don’t want the Wittenburg students to get too put out with me. I can’t prove it, but I’m positive they sabotaged one of the Oxford exchange students’ midterm project for Non-Anthropoid Clank Configuration after he made a noise complaint against them the first week of semester.”

“You should have gotten off-campus housing like I did,” Gil says smugly.

“Your neighbors aren’t any better,” Tarvek retorts. “I still can’t believe you hike all the way out to the factory district and back, every single day.”

“None of my neighbors have tried to sabotage my final projects.”

“Touché. But I’ve kept the Wittenburg students so busy thinking about the upcoming dogfight that my projects have gone unharmed.”

“And how is this dogfight supposed to go exactly? Do you have to invite another student?”

“No,” Tarvek shakes his head. “It doesn’t have to be another student. You can invite any yokel spark who wants to make turnips into vegetable golems or something. Set him loose in a room full of other half-wit bumpkins, while you and your collegiate conspirators watch the bedlam unfold.”

“Sounds like a reverse science fair,” Gil says.

“Something like that, I suppose. In this case, whoever brings the madboy that unleashes the worst invention wins a prize.”

“Which is?” Gil asks.

“An illustrated, first edition of ‘Trelawney Thorpe, Spark of the Realm, and the Mongfish Monster Menagerie’–”

“The crossover with the Heterodyne Boys series? Tarvek, that book was terrible–”

“–signed by Trelawney Thorpe.”

Gil whistles appreciatively. The sound echoes loudly in the annex’s tiled halls, earning them a few sour looks from the other students. “Count me in.”

“I haven’t invited you,” Tarvek turns his nose up in an inflated show of disdain.

“I invited myself. Consider this my RSVP.” Gil levels a friendly punch at his arm.

Tarvek still can’t believe the level of familiarity they’re allowed here, without what feels like all of Paris watching, without cousins to worry about or appearances to keep up. It’s like they’re kids again, sneaking around Castle Wulfenbach on their own private adventures. It’s… nice.

Tarvek wonders, personally, if it’s going to be difficult returning to Paris to finish out their term at the Institute of the Extraordinary after the winter holidays. Going back to the social distance they maintain there. No more shoulders bumping as they jostled through the crowds of students in the halls after class. No more study sessions for their shared classics requirements that turn into all-night collaborations on their latest projects. No more drinking coffee in the tiny cafes just off campus while they argue over which Van Rijn biographies are worth reading and which are total dross.

He already knows the answer. He just resolves not to think about it, not to ask Gil if he has plans for the upcoming winter break. Certainly not to ask if Gil would consider making a stay in Sturmhalten part of those plans.

“Typical boorish behavior on your part,” Tarvek banishes that line of thinking with a shake of his head. “I take back everything I said about your behavior improving. It’s gotten worse.”

“Nothing but the best for you,” Gil gives him a charming grin, holding the door to the auditorium open with a sweeping bow. “So when is the party?”

“Eight o’clock.”

Gil flashes him another easy smile. “Eight? That’s plenty of time to find a winner.”

* * *

**SCENE THE SECOND: A Beetleburg Alley Near Transylvania Polygnostic University, After Class**

"-as you die slowly like the miserable RATS YOU ARE!" the girl shouts in the alleyway behind Gil. The harmonics in her voice are outstanding, and it sounds like she's working herself up into a good and proper rant. But whatever she's going to say next is cut off by a yelp of pain. Gil turns his attention back to her – the muggers have already fled, no sense in chasing after them when there's a damsel still in distress.

The girl is bent nearly double, hands cradling her head as she sobs piteously. It doesn't look like she's bleeding, but one of the muggers slapped her pretty hard right before the blast.

Gil reviews the events of the last minute or so: walking towards his rented accommodations in the factory district, he had heard a girl’s voice shouting “help!” from a twisting, uneven alley. Dashing in without thinking, he nearly tripped over a pile of school books discarded in the middle of the lane. He’d seen two scruffy looking men menacing a bespectacled girl of about his age as she kicked and struggled to break free of the hold on her wrist. One of the scruffy looking men slapped the poor girl and tore off her necklace, shoving her towards a stack of empty crates. The crates toppled, the girl went down, and the thieves had bolted straight towards Gil.

Having seen more than enough to determine that this was an instance in which a bit of heroism was called for, Gil ducked and swept the leg of the first man, knocking him to the ground. Next, Gil had charged at the one with the stolen jewelry, lashing out with a solid right jab that caused the man to throw up his hands to block, dropping the pendant as he attempted to defend himself.

Several more punches and kicks had been exchanged between Gil and the standing mugger, and he’d fended off an attempt by the grounded fellow to kick the legs out from under him. From the corner of his eye Gil had seen the girl stagger out of the heap of crates and pull a little wind-up clank out of her coat pocket, giving the key on the back a good crank before she’d fobbed it at the muggers (and at Gil, but he was willing to forgive her that point). The device had exploded spectacularly, launching a hail of mechanical shrapnel. Gil had dodged the worst of the blast by diving behind a coal bin. From the sound of it, the muggers were not so quick.

“Ye-OWCH! Right in the ass!” one had howled, to which the other responded, “Shut up and run, Omar!” The men had taken off, and the girl had climbed to her feet and begun to rant.

Which brings Gil to the present. He takes a look around the alley. Scattered about are scraps of metal from the girl’s exploded clank, gears and springs and a rudimentary optical sensor halfway imbedded in a wooden shutter from the force of the detonation. One of the rivets from the faceplate had bounced off Gil’s calf, and he’s got the feeling it’s going to leave a nasty bruise. The books are still lying in an untidy heap at the head of the alley. He’d seen the girl’s glasses go flying when she was hit, but he’s got no idea where they landed. There's also her necklace on the ground, looking like it was stepped on in the scuffle.

"Miss?" Gil stays a few paces away from the crying girl, wary in case she’s got anything else that detonates in her coat. "Those men are gone. And they dropped your jewelry when your clank exploded."

Her head swings up at that last line. "My locket?" She asks, sniffling.

Gil scoops it up, brushing dust off the golden trilobite cover. Definitely stepped on – aside from the snapped chain, there's a back panel that won't close properly now. Inside there's a tiny mechanism that's clearly meant to be ticking… and very clearly isn’t ticking any longer. Before he can get a closer look at the broken teeth on one of the minuscule cogs, the girl swipes it out of his hands.

"Thank you," she cries, clutching the battered locket to her chest, "oh, thank you! You have no idea how important this locket is to me!"

"No worries, Miss-"

"Clay. Agatha Clay."

“Miss Clay.” Gil spots her glasses next to a rubbish bin and retrieves them for her. There’s a crack in the glass of one lens. “Are you injured? That ruffian hit you pretty hard.”

“I’ll be alright,” she scrubs the tears from her face with the heel of her palm and slips the glasses back on. She’s quite pretty, even with tear streaks and broken glasses. “I’ve got a headache, but it will pass. I just need to get back to campus and report this to Dr. Beetle.”

“You’re a student? Of course you are, that was a silly question. Those books are your textbooks, aren’t they? Let me get those for you…” he collects up her textbooks, propping them in the crook of his elbow before offering his other arm. “Let me escort you back to campus.”

Part of it is Gil’s innate streak of heroics (practiced and perfected in Paris, thank you very much) and the other part is the voice in the back of his head that reminds him he still doesn’t have a plus-one for the dogfight. (Not that he’d been too worried about that – even without a date, he figured he’d still show up to the party, give an excuse as to why he couldn’t find a yokel with an army of reanimated frogs, and at least get to spend the evening with Tarvek. But if fate is going to drop Miss Clay in his lap…)

She takes his arm gingerly, tucking the busted trilobite away in her coat pocket as they two set off towards the University’s main gate.

It’s odd, Gil thinks, that he hasn’t noticed her around campus. Female sparks aren’t exactly common, even at a University at prestigious as TPU, and he was sure he’d already made the acquaintance of all the ones currently enrolled. But with that little clank of hers, and the harmonics in her voice as she raged against the muggers, it’s obvious she’s a spark. It’s only after they’ve walked for a block and a half he realizes he still hasn’t introduced himself to Agatha.

“You’re probably wondering who I am,” he begins, hitching the stack of books a little higher in his grip.

“No, I know who you are,” she says. “You’re Gil Holzfäller.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I’m working as one of Dr. Glassvitch’s lab assistants. I’ve seen you at his office hours for third year Transmutations Lab. Your essay on more efficient methods of manufacturing blood salts was, uh…”

“My essay was…?” He prompts her.

“It was, um, not that I read it, not personally, it’s just, I heard him say it was really…”

“Really…?”

“Um… really. Really off… topic,” she admits hesitantly.

“What?” Gil sputters, indignant. “Dr. Glassvitch marked it an 80%! He said himself said my approach to the engineering was ‘novel’ and ‘refreshing’!”

“Of course he said it was ‘novel,’ you spent the majority of the paper talking about the industrial scale manufacturing process.” There’s that tone again, crackling just under the surface of her voice like electricity. It makes the hairs on the back of Gil’s neck stand up. “The assignment was to discuss the history of synthesization in a laboratory setting! Dr. Glassvitch went easy on you because he says you’re an otherwise excellent student, but when I graded it, I gave you a 65%!”

The words are hardly out before she goes wide-eyed and covers her mouth, and suddenly the harmonics are gone. “I shouldn’t have said that. Please forget I said anything!”

“Wait, you graded my paper?” He asks, suddenly more confused than before.

“I... helped,” She offers up, refusing to meet his gaze.

“That’s a TA’s job. He doesn’t have a TA for that lab.”

“I know…” Agatha admits miserably. “Please don’t tell anyone I’ve been helping Dr. Glassvitch with his grading. His last TA quit on such short notice, and he hasn’t had time to interview for a new one, what with his wife in the hospital last month–”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Gil assures her. They turn onto the main thoroughfare that leads to the University, past the stalls selling candied frogs and discount capacitors. “But to be grading other students’ work? Especially for a third year lab? You can’t be much older than I am. It’s quite distinguishing that you’re able to work as a lab assistant and a TA. Are you enrolled full time, too?”

“Yes, but I’ve been studying at the University since I was thirteen,” she tells him. “I was homeschooled before that, but Dr. Beetle is a friend of my family. He would let me sit in on classes, even if the other staff didn’t like it. I’m sure Dr. Merlot would expel me if he could. He hates me.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you–”

“He told me I’d be more useful broken down for parts when I audited his Introduction to Alchemic Inquiry class four years ago.” Gil doesn’t know what to say to that, but he’s relieved of the burden of coming up with a properly sensitive and reassuring response when she barrels on. “Professor Donowitz would bar the doors to his operating theater whenever he heard I was in the medical sciences building. And Professor Garrity chased me out of her Music History class three times, or maybe it was four?”

For the life of him, Gil can’t imagine anyone chasing Agatha out of a class. She seems quite polite (when she isn’t insulting his coursework or lobbing explosives at him), she’s well spoken, and she’s a spark. That tends to open doors in institutions like TPU.

“That sounds terrible,” he tells her honestly.

“It isn’t all bad. Dr. Beetle looks out for me in his own way. Without him, I don’t think I would have lasted more than a semester at TPU. And Dr. Glassvitch has always been kind to me, even though none of my inventions ever work the way they’re supposed to.”

Gil’s ears prick up at that. “So that clank you tossed at me wasn’t supposed to explode?”

Agatha shakes her head. “Not at all! I don’t really know what it was supposed to do. They always end up exploding or catching fire before I find out.”

“How could you not know what it’s supposed to do?” Gil asks her. “You built it!”

Agatha frees her arm from his. “You don’t have to make fun of me, I already know I’m a failure,” she says bitterly, and she looks like she might be about to cry again.

Gil could kick himself right now, he really could. Not only is this girl a spark, she’s a total disaster of a spark. If her exploding clank is anything to go by, keeping her at his side is the best chance he’ll have at winning the dogfight. (And if he doesn’t win, at least he gets to spend all evening with Tarvek _and_ a pretty girl who happens to be a spark. Win-Win.)

But he won’t have a shot at that signed copy of “Trelawney Thorpe and the Mongfish Monster Menagerie” if she won’t accompany him, and she won’t accompany him if she thinks he’s insulting her.

There’s just one thing left to do: turn on the charm.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he ducks his head a little, gives her one of those half-smiles Tarvek calls “rakish,” and he appeals to her battered ego. “I’m sorry if that upset you, I was just a little surprised. Not a lot of the students I know are willing to take risks like that with their work. I think it’s very bold of you to push boundaries like that.”

“You’re mocking me,” Agatha crosses her arms, unsure of him.

“On the contrary! Miss Clay, I think you have real potential. In fact, a few of my school friends are hosting a little get-together later this evening, with some constructive criticism for our personal projects. A fresh set of eyes might be just what you need! You should come to the party with me.”

That finally catches her attention. “Constructive criticism?”

“Oh yes. The most constructive. We’re all scientists here, Miss Clay.” He watches her wrestle with the decision, and he delivers the coup de grâce. “Of course, I understand if you don’t want to share your work – trade secrets and all that. But I’ve always felt that rigorous peer review is one of the best methods of improving the quality of one’s own work.”

Bullseye. He can see it the moment she makes up her mind, the way her eyebrows scrunch behind her glasses. “And this gathering…” Agatha doesn’t uncross her arms, but she does stand up a little straighter. “It doesn’t run too late, does it?”

“Of course not!” Gil, puts a hand over his heart, as if scandalized by the thought. “I would have you home to your parents by eleven, on my honor.”

“Then I accept,” she says, and her timing is perfect because they’re just across the street from the main gates.

“Wonderful!” Gil says, and he means it. “Shall I pick you up at seven thirty?”

“Yes, at Clay Mechanical, on Forge Street. May I have my school books back?”

“Oh? Of course, of course, sorry,” Gil hands her the stack of textbooks as they approach the entry, guarded as it is by the massive bulk of Mr. Tock. “I’ll see you this evening, Miss Clay. Be sure to bring any projects you feel are worth another set of eyes on them. Anything that could use a little extra attention.”

“I will!” Agatha smiles at him, a light and lovely smile, and trots off towards Mr. Tock to validate her student ID number.

Gil resists the urge to celebrate right there in the street. Already he can feel the weight of that signed first edition in his hands. He just hopes Tarvek won’t be too disappointed when he loses.

* * *

**SCENE THE THIRD: Transylvania Polygnostic University’s Student Housing, Elytra Residence for Exchange Students, Evening**

There’s something peculiar about Gil’s guest that Tarvek can’t quite put his finger on. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with her, aside from the fact that the mantel clock she brought for her project is a catastrophe waiting to happen. While the actual timekeeping apparatus at the center appears sound (if not a few seconds slow), it’s borne aloft by what appear to be four uneven, palm-sized little clanks built out of pocket watch casings and enough extraneous brass to choke a horse. He’s sure if he so much as glances at the crank on the back of the largest one the springs in it will explode.

No, aside from that fact that Gil’s date is a solid contender for winner of the dogfight, there’s something familiar about the shape of her face, the color of her hair. Currently she’s eating cheese cubes off a small plate with an equally tiny fork and looking around nervously. Tarvek has a good vantage to see her in profile from where she stands next to Gil. She’s wearing a trilobite pin at her throat that looks like it’s been stepped on. A bit strange for a Beetleburg resident, but she could just be a fan of the Heterodyne boys. Who isn’t? The cracked glasses might have been an attempt to lend an air of devil-may-care-madboy-flare to her outfit, but the rest of her looks quite buttoned-up and proper, especially in comparison to her current company.

Gil is busy chatting with Karl, one of the Wittenburg students, and Karl’s “guest,” a rather excitable lad named Peter who tries to bring every conversation around to the art of divining the future from observing the patterns made by cooked noodles dropped on a plate – and, by extension, the device he’s invented to decipher these signs more efficiently. Peter’s creation has already burned two guests by spraying boiling water out of a faulty seal on the pressurized cooking tank.

So far, there have been three fires and a fistfight this evening. Tarvek has had to deter several attempts to dismantle the mechanical piano in the corner, currently playing a light mazurka, and it’s only nine thirty in the evening (or nine twenty nine and forty two seconds, according to Miss Clay’s clock). He’s positive the damage to the curtains is going to come out of his deposit, which really isn’t fair because the gathering is being held exclusively in the residence’s common rooms. In his head he’s tallying up the cost of all that brocade when he sees Gil making his way across the room with his date in tow.

“Sturmvoraus!” Gil calls out. “Tarvek, there you are! We hardly had time to say hello when we walked in.”

“Yes, I’m sorry I had to run off so suddenly. I wasn’t expecting anything to catch on fire so early in the festivities, much less the punchbowl.” Tarvek turns to the girl and offers a polite smile, tamping down the nagging feeling that he recognizes her from somewhere, that he ought to ask if she’s ever traveled through Sturmhalten (it’s for the best if she hasn’t). Social graces come first. “Miss Clay, was it? Agatha Clay? I’m charmed to make your acquaintance properly this time.”

“Likewise, Herr Sturmvoraus,” she gives a proper curtsey, careful not to drop the cheese plate.

“You can call me Tarvek, if you prefer. I saw the clock you brought with you this evening, and I must say I’m impressed by the execution of the little standing clanks.” He’s impressed they haven’t burst yet, that’s for sure. “What inspired you to use watch casings for the construction?”

“Material availability,” she blushes when she answers. Her straightforward reply is oddly endearing, as is the color rising in her cheeks. “Custom machined parts are expensive, if you can even get your hands on them. Beetleburg certainly isn’t the wastelands, but it’s not as large as Paris. Gil told me you two attend the Institute of the Extraordinary there, is that correct?”

“That’s correct. I hope he hasn’t been boring you, only talking about himself all evening?”

“Oh no,” Agatha shakes her head fervently. “Herr Holzfäller has been the perfect gentleman. He’s told me quite a bit about the adventures you two have gotten up to during your studies.”

“Is that so?” Tarvek shoots Gil an incredulous glance over Miss Clay’s head, but Gil is too busy staring at her with a stupid smile on his face. Tarvek’s heart absolutely does not perform a complicated little flip in his chest.

“Yes. You seem like quite good friends,” she looks between the two of them. “How long have you known each other?”

“Ages and ages,” Gil chimes in, all smiles.

“It feels like a lifetime,” Tarvek says. “But enough about that. Tell us more about your work! I’m particularly interested in the dimensions of the project you’ve brought in. Are your projects usually so compact? Do you have a preference for working at that scale?”

“Oh! That. Well…” Agatha blushes again, and fixes him in place with her bright green eyes. “It’s… more a matter of being conservative with my resources. The fabricators in town are usually busy making parts for Dr. Beetle’s projects, so you can imagine the scale and cost of what they produce is pretty large. My projects are… really not that impressive. I can’t go and spend my whole stipend on a new aetheric condenser, even if I wanted to. I mostly use what I can find.”

“How charmingly utilitarian,” Tarvek replies.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Miss Clay,” Gil pats her on the back. “Even without proper resources, you’ve managed to do some excellent work with the parts you’ve scavenged.”

Agatha’s blush is going to send her up in flames. “You’re too kind. It’s just a hobby, really, what I do.”

Gil is still beaming at her. Tarvek wants to dislike Agatha, but he can’t. He wants to be jealous that she’s captivated Gil’s attention, but he can’t. She’s so earnest, like she’s starving for positive interaction from her peers, from Gil, from him. Up close Tarvek would swear he recognizes her, he just doesn’t know where from.

Agatha looks around then, and whispers to Gil and Tarvek, “I hope you don’t think I’m rude for asking this, but aren’t there a lot of sparks at this gathering?”

Gil lets out an undignified snort of amusement. Tarvek can’t help but snicker. “Aren’t there a lot of sparks at this gathering?” he repeats, and Gil nearly chokes on his laughter. Miss Clay looks confused, but she chuckles nervously.

“Truly, Miss Clay, you’re too modest.” Tarvek says, and perhaps that comes out a little harsh. He needs a moment to recover himself. “Tell me, have you tried the spinach and feta puffs yet? They’re utterly delightful. I know I saw a serving clank with a tray making its way around the drawing room just a minute ago–”

She spots the tray of food from across the crowd and hurriedly excuses herself to grab one. Before Gil can follow her across the room, Tarvek takes a half-step into his path.

“Who is she?” Tarvek asks, sweeping up two wine glasses from a little wheeled server that trundles past. One glass he holds out to Gil, an invitation to stay and chat for a moment.

“Agatha? What do you mean ‘who is she’?” Gil accepts the glass without complaint, settling back on his heels.

Tarvek decides that honesty, for once, might be the best policy – nothing to lose, after all. “She seems familiar and I can’t exactly place why.”

“Huh. Well, she is Dr. Glassvitch’s lab assistant. Maybe you know her from there? But you’re not taking any classes with Dr. Glassvitch. Still, you might have seen her around campus.”

“I have a feeling that I know her from before Beetleburg.” Taking a bracing sip of his wine (it’s very dry, a terrible vintage), Tarvek metes out his words carefully. “Maybe it’s nothing. Misplaced déjà vu.”

“Must be.” Gil gulps down most of his glass, never one to be cowed by things like “alcohol tolerance” or “moderation.” “We got to talking on our way over from her place. She said she’s lived in Beetleburg most of her life. Not likely that you’d have run into her before now.”

Had Gil been to her home? How long had he known Agatha? The mechanical piano finishes its tune and immediately launches into the next song, no pauses as the piano’s accompaniment of bells and miniaturized percussion drivers strike up a pleasant waltz. Tarvek will have to take a look at the timing of the roll feeder switching gear… or maybe he won’t. It’s not like the piano belongs to him. He isn’t responsible for it.

Across the room, it sounds like another fight is about to break out – two of the yokels are arguing over the merits of control groups when it comes to cultivating man-eating strains of foxglove. One is of the opinion that the control group is fundamentally worthless. The other is vocally asserting his belief that the control group is “actively detrimental” to the experiment because it “gives the cultivar a bad role model.” Tarvek directs the serving clank over with its tray of drinks, and the argument is temporarily averted as the two sparks toast to all things botanical and carnivorous.

Calm restored, Gil adds, “Though I did think it was strange I’d never so much as heard of her from anyone else on campus.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You’d think a female spark would make a few more waves a school as big as TPU. Especially one as…”

“Disastrous?” Tarvek supplies.

“Disastrous as her, yeah,” Gil agrees. “Did I tell you she lobbed a clank at my head this afternoon? I rescued her from a pair of muggers, and she nearly hit me with it right before it exploded.”

“Then I suppose I’m glad her aim is as bad as her sparkwork.” In the next room, Tarvek can see that Agatha has moved on from the spinach puffs to the sideboard holding the five-tier chocolate fountain he’d built. She’s admiring the workmanship of the fountain’s circulation apparatus as much as she is the fine Belgian chocolate in the fountain, which is to say; quite a bit. At least she has good taste in transmission shaft architecture. Tarvek can also see Victor, an Oxford spark with a penchant for destroying footwear, sizing up Agatha’s boots.

“Give me a moment, it looks like your guest might be in need of another rescue,” Tarvek puts his wine glass in Gil’s hand and moves to intercept Victor. Gil does not take the hint to stay put, instead following right behind Tarvek.

“What’s wrong?”

“See that fellow in the maroon vest? He steals shoes and melts the heels to get at the celluloid in them. He’s eyeing Miss Clay’s boots.”

“That won’t end well,” Gil says.

Several events then happen in quick succession, so perhaps it would be best to unpack them in rough chronological order:

The sparks who had been arguing about foxglove cultivars appear to have turned their collective ire against a TPU student who had wandered into their conversation and balked at their disdain for control groups.

A drink is thrown, and then a punch, commencing the second physical altercation of the evening. The brawl seems to swell from three sparks to ten in the space of a few seconds.

Gil vaults over a settee to break up the fight, spilling the glasses of wine everywhere. The party-goers who had been seated there protest loudly, propelling themselves off the cushions in an effort to avoid the rapidly spreading stain of red wine. They do an exceptional job of getting in Tarvek’s way as he attempts to reach the drawing room. In the back of his mind, he adds the cost of re-covering the settee to the dent in his deposit.

Victor moves into a position next to Agatha, and points at her sensible, low-heeled boots in an agitated fashion. He says something to her, not that Tarvek can hear over the cacophony in the common room. Agatha attempts to step away from Victor, only to find her escape blocked by the chocolate fountain laden sideboard.

In his haste to avoid the punches being thrown, Peter-the-Pastamancy-Spark throws himself backwards, only to trip over the same wheeled serving clank Tarvek had sent over to quell the fight not two minutes ago. Peter lets out a yelp of alarm as he crashes into the cheese table.

The wheeled serving clank spins out of control, careening into the mechanical piano. It takes out the roll feeder on impact. The waltz devolves in a discordant racket, much like an orchestra winding down as the players realize the conductor has suffered a fatal heart attack mid-way through the “Abduction” chorus of Reichenbach’s “The Storm King” opera. The miniature bell chorus goes absolutely haywire.

Someone shouts something along the lines of “You fools! I’ll SHOW you ALL!” Another guest replies, “Hey! That’s MY line!”

As the cheese table’s structural integrity collapses under Peter’s tumbling form, a half dozen assorted cheeses and the decorative centerpiece of the table– a plasma globe that had been emitting a pleasant ambient glow all evening– are catapulted across the room. The cheese rains down on guests. The plasma globe shatters against a copper umbrella stand, arcing spectacularly for a bright moment. The room fills with the scent of charred ozone.

Victor grabs Agatha’s wrist.

Agatha’s high, clear voice cuts through all the noise like a knife. “Get your hands off of me, you WRETCHED MISCREANT!”

The room, which had been in full turmoil just a second before, is held still and silent for a moment as all eyes turn towards Miss Clay. Victor releases her arm as if he’s been burned.

There’s a fury in Agatha’s eyes like Tarvek has never seen before. Except–

Except he has.

The memory of the “Chapel of the Goddess” under Sturmhalten hits Tarvek so hard he stumbles in place. The smell of burning ozone from the Summoning Engine. The flash of lights as the electricity dies down. The chimes and sirens of the horrible machine shutting off, another dead girl sitting on the “throne.”

Lucrezia. Everywhere in the Chapel there are statues of Lucrezia, portraits of Lucrezia, caryatids and finials and sconces shaped like Lucrezia. Lucrezia as a classical goddess, Lucrezia conquering, Lucrezia in full fugue, resplendent and terrible.

The resemblance isn’t perfect, but now that he knows what he’s looking for Tarvek sees it everywhere. The bow of her upper lip, the shape of her eyes, the cheekbones.

And then he remembers the icons of the Geisterdamen; Lucrezia with the Holy Child.

That means that Agatha–

The daughter of Lucrezia Mongfish and Bill Heterodyne.

Agatha must be –

The Heterodyne Princess.

Agatha–

“Oh, _fuck_.” Tarvek whispers under his breath.

Though the world may have stopped for Tarvek Sturmvoraus, it continues to spin at a normal pace for everyone else in the room. Victor scuttles away from Agatha with a mumbled, “Apologies, Mistress.” Gil manages to quell the fighting with a few well-placed blows, then helps Peter up out of the wreckage of the cheese table. Two Wittenburg students rig up a replacement for the piano’s roll feeder by cannibalizing the rotors out of the unfortunate serving clank. A tinkling piano melody fills the room, but Tarvek can barely hear it. His perception has focused down to a pinpoint centered on Agatha Clay. She shakes her head, wavering uncertainly between the chocolate fountain and the entrance to the common room. The rest of the guests are giving her a wider berth, which is for the best.

Tarvek needs - he needs proof. The more he looks at her, the less sure he is. Are his glasses getting foggy? Is his eyesight blurring? Is his head swimming? Does he really remember Lucrezia's face that well, from the paintings and the sculpture and the icons?

When a hand touches his shoulder, Tarvek nearly jumps out of his skin. He wheels around, ready to stab the assailant with the poisoned stiletto he keeps up his shirtsleeves. It’s only Gil standing behind him.

“Whoa, didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?” Gil asks.

No. No, he is not okay.

“I’m. Fine.” Tarvek lies, tucking away the knife and hoping he’s fast enough that Gil didn’t see the blade. He tries to get his mouth working just long enough to spit out an excuse. “Just surprised. If you would. Please. Excuse me, I’ve just remembered that my guest has wandered off. And I need to find him. Immediately. You should make sure Miss Clay is safe.”

The word “safe” drops out of his mouth like lead, and he flees the common room. His excuse is at least is partially true; his guest had disappeared almost an hour ago to “investigate the harmonic frequencies of the residence’s plumbing,” and has not been seen since. Tarvek feels like he might need to go investigate the harmonic frequencies of a nice quiet washroom where he can hyperventilate, and perchance empty the contents of his stomach.

But first. Proof. The illustrated first edition copy of "Trelawney Thorpe, Spark of the Realm, and the Mongfish Monster Menagerie", currently under lock and key in Karl’s room, has a page detailing the cast of characters just after the frontispiece. Tarvek had only flipped through the book before, when Karl had shown it off prior to the party, but he’s sure the character list is illustrated – the character list including Dr. Mongfish’s three beautiful daughters.

Karl’s rooms are of course booby-trapped, as any spark’s personal rooms should be. Not that the presence of traps or the locked doors means anything to Tarvek. Karl's suite abuts the old butler's pantry, so it's a simple matter to slip inside the pantry when no one is looking, clamber over the tea trolley with the broken wheel and a discarded auto-broom, climb the tall shelves against the far wall, push the stacks of cracked china & tarnished silver out of the way, pry the grille off the ventilation ducts, shimmy right on through the duct to the other side, pop the grille out and watch it drop to the overstuffed couch below (conveniently placed against the wall of Karl's salon, cushioning the crash from the impact), and gently lower himself from the ventilations shaft to touch down on the sofa as well.

Tarvek doesn’t even bother with the booby-traps at floor level, climbing from the sofa to the low table to the ostentatious leather wingback chair, avoiding the two Klaxon-Mats disguised as cheap throw rugs. Taking the high road over a bookshelf, he totally bypasses the Aschenputtel Shoe Catcher, and with one uncomfortable stretch to get under the slowly rotating arms of the Calder Intruder-Tangler-Dangler hanging from the ceiling like a deranged mobile he reaches Karl’s bedchamber. The book is sitting right out on the desk. Tarvek snatches it up.

A growl sounds behind him – whipping around, Tarvek sees Karl’s nasty, poorly sequenced badger-fox hybrid “guard dog” asleep on a tufted velvet cushion. She’s still slumbering, but she’s sniffling and snorting and making low, angry snarls. Tarvek had wondered why the damn creature wasn’t at the party – Karl brought “her” near everywhere with him. She was always snapping at ankles and shredding coat tails that swished too close – Tarvek had lost his third best calfskin loafers to the wretched beast.

While he takes a moment to mourn the loss of his loafers, the creature raises her snout groggily and points her sharp little face in Tarvek’s direction. The golden collar around her neck jangles daintily, and Tarvek can just barely make out the nametag that reads “Schatzi.”

Thinking quickly, Tarvek grabs Karl’s hideously embroidered housecoat from over the back of the desk chair and tosses it to the edge of the badger-fox’s bed. She sniffs the coat gingerly before snatching it up in her sharp little teeth, happily gnawing and shredding the fabric as she returns to her dream of some form of primal violence.

Tarvek skips back across the furniture double-time, playing a solo game of “The Floor is Lava and also I’m Avoiding Being Mauled by an Ornery Badger-Fox That Could Awaken at Any Moment” that would have made his Smoke Knight tutors weep with joy, were they alive to see it. Then he’s up into the ducts and pulling the grille into place behind him all silent-like, leaving no trace of his entry. Back into the butler’s pantry, replacing the first grille, clambering down the shelves, definitely not getting spooked by the silhouette of the discarded serving clanks still under protective dust sheets (don’t be ridiculous) or the auto-broom propped against the cleaning cupboard (it most certainly does not look like a tall, thin assassin poised to strike from the shadows), and absolutely not tripping over the busted tea trolley. He steals out the pantry door, sneaks past the browbeaten looking Victor (who is lingering outside the coat room and cradling a shoe in his arms like a beloved child), slips into the kitchen, and throws open the door to the old servant’s staircase.

It’s cramped and closed and dusty in there, but it’s also secluded. Tarvek flicks the lights on, dismayed by the flickering electric bulbs and darkened sockets as and climbs the stairs towards the fourth floor. He flips through the pages of the Trelawney Thorpe book, but the light from the fixtures is barely bright enough to make the next step ahead of him discernable. Climbing higher, Tarvek passes the landing for the first floor, then the second. Just beneath the third floor landing there’s a fixture with a single new bulb in it, throwing out enough light to read by.

Paging through the beginning of the book, Tarvek finds the cast of characters. There are charming inked portraits of Trelawney Thorpe, Jolly Jack Tarr, Princesses Neptunia and Mercuria, and a whole cast of Ms. Thorpe’s British accomplices. The next page contains rather fanciful illustrations of the Heterodyne Boys, surrounded by wreathes of gears and and cogs. Below are smaller portraits of their faithful companions Punch and Judy, the enigmatic Zzxzm, Thundering Engine Woman. And then there are the portraits of the villainous Dr. Mongfish and his daughters. Demonica, Serpentina, and Lucrezia.

There’s a bit of text next to each portrait, describing the source material the depiction is based on. The one next to Lucrezia’s states that the artist based her likeness on a copy of her wedding portrait. Tarvek can speak to the accuracy of the reproduction – his father keeps a copy of the wedding portrait in his personal study.

He thumbs through the book and on page 213 there’s a full-page illustration of Dr. Mongfish and his daughters fighting off the combined forces of Trelawney Thorpe and the Heterodyne Boys. Dr. Mongfish directs a swarm of flying, laser-jawed Atlantic salmon against his heroic foes from atop a defeated mechanical octopus, while just below Demonica and Serpentina engage in a death ray battle with Thundering Engine Woman. Lucrezia occupies a vignette all her own the lower right corner of the facing page, grinding her spiked heel into Jolly Jack Tarr’s ankle and cursing Thorpe for thwarting her father’s evil schemes.

On page 57 there’s an illustration of the Mongfish family wreaking havoc on an undefended hamlet, ordering a squadron of giant scorpions towards the town’s center. Lucrezia smirks there, pointing out a lane filled with screaming villagers she’d like the scorpions to trample.

On 353 there’s another vignette of Lucrezia, this time back to back with Bill Heterodyne as they fight off her father’s escaped flight of uncontrollable, bloodsucking spider-bats in an abandoned cathedral, cursing Thorpe for not coming to save her from her own villainous hubris. A heroic silhouette in the distance makes it clear Trelawney Thorpe has arrived just in time to deliver assistance.

The illustrations are good. Very good. And every additional picture of Lucrezia confirms the likeness. The book nearly drops from Tarvek’s hands. It’s almost worse now that he has concrete proof. He feels like he’s going to be ill all over again. Tarvek stumbles up the remainder of the narrow stairs and out into the hallway on the fourth floor, pushing a potted plant away from the camouflaged door.

He needs a moment. He needs to compose himself. Tarvek wishes very suddenly he’d copied Gil’s example and had a few more glasses of cheap wine before he’d stepped out of the party – sobriety is doing nothing to help him handle this situation. He also needs to change out of the dusty jacket he’s wearing, and maybe scream into a pillow for a bit, and… and… and not do anything about the Heterodyne Princess right now. After all, it’s not like she’s going anywhere, is she?

That sounds good, he thinks. He’ll go to his rooms, he’ll change into the blue coat Gil always liked, calm himself down, and then he’ll rejoin the party and drink as much damn wine as he pleases. And when it’s done he’ll wave the Heterodyne Princess and his best friend on their merry way, and then he’ll go to bed and come up with a plan tomorrow, and everything will work out fine.

That cautious optimism is soon doused. As he hurries down the hall towards his suite, a Smoke Knight emerges from the shadows of an open doorway and kneels before him.

“Master Tarvek,” the Smoke Knight, Roya, is one of Anevka’s. Roya doesn’t look like she’s here to kill him, but when has that ever been a good barometer for predicting assassination attempts?

“Roya,” he snaps, cramming the Trelawney Thorpe book into his coat pocket, “what are you doing here?”

“It’s your father,” Roya responds. “Prince Aaronev is in Beetleburg.”

Tarvek’s train of thought does not merely stop. It derails entirely.

“W-what? How? Why?” He yanks Roya up by the front of her cloak. “When did he get here?”

“He only arrived in town an hour ago, via airship.” Roya, to her credit, seems to grasp the importance of the situation.

How could his father have figured out the location of the Geister’s Holy Child? Did he have spies here in Beetleburg? Were the Geisterdamen going into cities now, to kidnap girls for the Summoning Engine?

No, that was ridiculous. Tarvek had spies keeping tabs on all his father’s spies. He would have heard something. His father must be here for a different reason. But what else would necessitate an in-person visit… right before Tarvek was scheduled to come home for winter break? He takes a deep breath and releases Roya, composing himself as best he can.

“Tell my father I will join him soon. Right now I’m in the middle of a social engagement, but I will come to him as soon as I am finished here. Where is he staying?”

Roya shakes her head. “He is not staying in town, Master Tarvek. He is in your apartments right now.”

...

“Where did Tarvek disappear to?” Agatha asks, seated at Gil’s side. He’s chosen an out-of-the-way spot in the music room for them to sit, with a clear view of both the entryway from the parlor and the French doors that lead out to the manicured grounds on which the Elytra Residence for Exchange Students sits. The rest of the guest are giving them some space, and she hasn’t seen the man in the maroon vest since she yelled at him. But if Agatha is being honest, she feels a bit safer now that she can see all the entrances to the room. Her clock sits on the coffee table in front of them, also safe from the other party guests.

“He said he needed to find his guest, but that was nearly twenty minutes ago,” Gil says. He seems antsy now with Tarvek having disappeared. He fiddles with a complicated multi-tool, doing equally complicated things with the remains of the serving clank that had been cannibalized for parts to repair the mechanical piano. Agatha follows the motion of his hands as he strips the protective casing from a handful of wires, twisting them back together in new and interesting configurations.

“Who is Tarvek’s guest? Is he an acquaintance of– no, don’t use the green wire there,” she points to the wire Gil has taken hold of, connected to the clank’s optical sensors. “You’ll need to keep that one attached if you want to maintain the clank’s ability to navigate a crowded room.”

Gil raises an eyebrow and yanks the green wire out entirely. “It’s extraneous.”

“Why would you do that?” Agatha narrows her eyes. “I just told you that you’ll need that wire.”

“I’m going to re-route the navigation through the auditory sensors.”

“That’s a terrible idea! Put it back before you do any more damage.”

“It’ll use echolocation to move around, much better than relying on one set of optics. Trust me, once I distribute the existing auditory sensors more evenly, this thing will be able to navigate in total darkness.”

Agatha holds up her drink, a glass of white wine she’s hardly touched during the twenty minutes they’ve waited for Tarvek’s return. “How will it tell the difference between red wine and white wine if it doesn’t have an optical sensor? Hmm?”

Gil pauses, evaluating Agatha’s face carefully. “How about you show me the improvements you would make?”

Snatching the multi-tool out of his hand before he can have second thoughts, she delves into the clank’s exposed chassis, brimming with excitement. “Well first, I’d make changes to the internal gyroscope. Did you see how easily it overbalanced? I can do better than that with a few paper clips.”

Gil dutifully hands her a few bits of wire he’d collected when he’d swept up after the mess made of the plasma globe, and she sets to work. She starts with the clank’s core ambulatory and equilibrioceptional systems, and once that’s done she moves up. She re-etches a few of the cylinders in the vocalizer box. Reassembling the gearshift drivers to allow for smoother stops, she has the idea to add a doubled ring of teeth on the interior of the gears to save on room and weight! And if she does that, she can reposition the pistons laterally to lower the center of gravity… all her theories are coming together nicely on this build. Nothing’s exploded yet! And Gil makes a fantastic assistant. He lends a hand when she disassembles the already gutted rotor housing, and he makes sure she has the wires she needs (and a pocket-sized spot welder!) before she even knows she needs them.

But why stop with calibrating the current design parameters? She rebuilds the auditory/ optical input program to include gustatory and olfactory input. Then she decides she might as well add a subroutine that will recommend wine and cheese pairings based on over 200 data points collected from samples of both the alcohol and dairy products. It starts out as a side project, an exercise in augmenting the clank’s functionality, but if she crosses the wires leading to the new sensory capacitors, she can give the clank seven different types of synesthesia to toggle between while evaluating the pairings!

“How do you know that this project won’t detonate when you’re finished with it?” Gil asks when she’s rebuilt half the power supply to route it around the improved secondary and tertiary gyroscopes.

“I don’t!” Agatha admits cheerfully. “But I have a feeling it’ll work out.”

“You have a feeling? That’s not a very scientific metric, now is it?”

Agatha stops assembling the replacement brakes and glares up at Gil. “Are you making fun of me again?”

“Not at all,” he says, putting his hands up in a placating gesture. His lap is covered with what looks like several meters of wiring and a coolant line. The remainder of the machine’s innards are spread out on the coffee table, the sofa, and the floor. “I’m just curious. You seem like an intelligent girl, but you claim none of your experiments ever work. You’re a full time student and a lab assistant, and you’re polite and easy to talk to, but you say teachers can’t stand you.”

Well. That line of conversation is unexpected. And it certainly puts a damper on Agatha’s good mood.

“Did you have somewhere you were going with your observations, or did you plan to sit there and continue to give me backhanded compliments?”

“I meant to offense, Miss Clay. It’s just that you’re one of the strangest sparks I’ve ever known.”

Agatha can only stare at him with her mouth open. What on earth was he on about? “I’m sorry, Herr Holzfäller, but you must be mistaken. I’m not a spark.”

Gil takes one look at her and bursts out laughing, like she's told a particularly funny joke.

“What’s so funny?” Agatha demands.

“Not a spark?” Gil shakes with laughter. “Of course you’re a spark. Look at you, you’re elbow deep in a clank, building an extra pair of arms so that it can climb up walls and serve wine from the ceiling.”

Agatha looks down. The serving clank on the table before them indeed has a few extra arms that hadn’t been there before she’d started tinkering. And her clock – oh no. Her clock has been totally disassembled, except for two of the little clanks that’d held up the main timekeeping piece. She spots parts of her project all throughout the serving clank, from the casing that’s been hammered flat and made into plating on the serving clank’s new arms, to the clock hands that have been bent into the support beams for a miniature crankshaft behind the primary gyroscopes. There is brass everywhere. Her own arms, and the front of the vest she’d worn this evening are both stained with grease. There are dark crescents of it under her nails, and scratches on her hands from digging around in the clank’s cramped chassis.

“I’m a lab assistant,” she says slowly, as if trying to convince herself as well. “I assist sparks in their projects. I've helped Dr. Beetle. This is… any lab assistant could do this.”

“Miss Clay, you’re not lab assistant material. You can accomplish so much more. You’re a spark.”

“One doesn’t need to be a spark to contribute, Herr Holzfäller,” Agatha says coldly.

“I’m not insulting you, Miss Clay, I promise. I mean, I had my doubts about your competence when you threw that exploding clank at me this afternoon, and then when I saw that ridiculous clock you brought with you this evening. But after hearing the harmonics in your voice? After seeing you work? There’s no denying it. I was wrong about you being some yokel spark that builds infinite left shoe-replicators, or pasta prediction engines in their fugues. You’ve got serious potential.”

“I…” Agatha doesn’t have words right now. She isn’t a spark. She’s not. Nothing she ever builds works. None of her designs ever come out right. She’d told him as much. “I. But… why? Why would you invite me to this party if you thought I was a weak spark?”

Gil suddenly looks very guilty. “To… uh. To… win…”

“Win what?”

“This evening was supposed to be fun,” Gil says pleadingly, pushing the wires and debris off his lap and standing. He gestures to the doorway leading to the rest of the common rooms, where the party is in full swing with the repaired piano playing at top volume as a chorus of tipsy students belts out the TPU fight song. “Can’t we go back out there and enjoy ourselves?”

“No. We cannot.” Agatha stands too, crossing her arms. “What were you trying to do here?”

Gil runs a hand through his hair, looking around like the answer is going to appear somewhere in the floral wallpaper. “The party… there’s a bet going. Whoever invites the worst spark, the one who causes the most damage or who brings the shoddiest invention… he wins a prize. It’s… it’s an asinine thing, the Wittenburg students started it, just to blow off some steam before finals. I wasn’t even invited, but I told Tarvek I was coming anyways–”

“Herr Sturmvoraus is in on this too?”

“He’s… yeah, he planned the party. At first I wasn’t going to bring anyone, I just wanted to spend time with him before we have to go back to Paris. But then I met you, and you threw a bomb at me…”

“It wasn’t a bomb!” Agatha snaps back.

“It exploded! That makes it a bomb!”

She had thought, when Gil asked her to come with him, that he had done so out of kindness. She had thought that his friend, Tarvek, had been genuinely interested in her work.

“Is that the only reason you invited me here this evening? Because you thought I was some idiot madgirl?”

“I… I’m sorry. Yes.”

...

Prince Aaronev VI stands in Tarvek’s darkened apartments looking like a specter from a nightmare, lit from below by the lights of the courtyard outside. He looks haggard, as if he's been awake for several days straight. Tarvek resolves to deny having any knowledge about the whereabouts of the Holy Child. Not even a half hour ago that much was true.

"Tarvek," Aaronev grunts, forgoing formality entirely. "Gather your things. You need to return to Sturmhalten."

Tarvek nearly vibrates out of his skin with the tension. Is his father testing him? Is he trying to bluff Tarvek? “Right away?” Tarvek asks innocently.

“As soon as possible,” Aaronev confirms. “Take what you’ll need for the journey, and any personal items. I’ll send servants to collect the rest of your belongings.”

“Finals are next week, father,” Tarvek stands in place, hands folded in front of him. “And my fall wardrobe is nearly all in Beetleburg. I can’t just leave.”

“I’ll write a letter to the University. You can send in your work in absentia.”

He chances a bit of boldness in his next question. “What is so important that I’m needed at home right away? Why come all the way to Beetleburg just to retrieve me yourself?”

Aaronev looks at Tarvek, and if feels like his father is looking through him. It takes a conscious effort not to shift his posture, to stand up straighter or move his feet into a better defensive stance. The room is still dark. He hadn’t turned the lights on when he’d walked in, too rattled by his father’s sudden appearance to think about something as mundane as illuminating the room. Why was Aaronev even lurking in his darkened rooms? It’s too late now to go and flip the switch, illuminate the darkness.

“There was an incident in Sturmhalten. Roya will help you pack.”

Could it be that his father was not here because of the Holy Child? Did he not know? No, that’s not the question to ask. How _could_ his father know? Tarvek only just stumbled across her minutes ago at a stupid dogfight he hadn’t even wanted to host. The location of the Holy Child - no, of the Heterodyne Princess - is a secret that only Tarvek knows. For now.

But that raises a slew of new questions. Roya is his sister’s Smoke Knight. She wouldn’t leave Anevka to travel all the way to Beetleburg to ensure Tarvek’s return unless there was a good reason. “Roya!” Tarvek turns his head sharply to the right, watches Roya step out from the shadow of an armoire. “Why aren’t you with Anevka?”

“Prince Aaronev ordered that I accompany him.” Something is wrong. Roya wouldn’t take orders from their father. Unless…

“Why hasn’t Anevka answered any of my letters?”

“I cannot say,” Roya looks at Aaronev. Not, “I can’t say,” as if she were guessing the motives of a fickle mistress. “I cannot say.” She’s been ordered to keep quiet.

"Father. Where is Anevka?" Tarvek has the sinking feeling he already knows the answer to the question. He truly, truly hopes he’s wrong.

"She's at home, under the care of the court's doctors. There's been a lab accident."

Tarvek can feel his mouth shaping the words "What kind of lab accident?", but it doesn’t feel as if he’s the one speaking them.

"It doesn't matter," Aaronev says. But it does. His father is lying, and Tarvek already has his answer. "Your sister was injured. She’s very weak, and she can't travel right now. You need to come home."

Anevka does not have lab accidents, not while she works. She might act prissy, but the truth is she’s fastidious. She’s suspicious of everyone and everything, doubly so when it comes to her own family. They both abhor their father’s less-than-stringent lab safety protocols, but Anevka is the one who won’t even set foot in Aaronev’s lab if Aaronev is in residence.

So that’s it, then.

Tarvek had not thought his father capable of putting his own daughter in the Summoning Engine, but that can be the only explanation. The unanswered letters. His father’s appearance in Beetleburg. Roya at his side. The cagey half-answers to Tarvek's questions.

If his father is at least telling the truth about Anevka still being alive, then it's a miracle she survived the process at all. She’s not just injured. She’s dying.

...

“I need to go,” Agatha says. “I’m leaving.”

“Miss Clay– Agatha–” Gil comes around the coffee table and reaches for her hand. “Please don’t.”

Agatha snatches her hand away, balls it into a fist. She realizes she hasn’t let go of Gil’s multi-tool this whole time, and she throws it down on the table. “Don’t? Don’t what? Don’t go? Don’t cost you your chance at, at some stupid prize?”

“I’m sorry. I really, truly am. It was never my intention to upset you.”

“Only because you didn’t think I’d find out about your stupid, stupid–” all the other words she wants to use are the sort of rude words Lilith told her never to use in polite company… but seeing as polite company is in short supply, she lets loose. “Your moronic, misbegotten little contest!”

“I know you’re angry, but if you would just listen–”

“No! I don’t want to hear any more from you! Because of course you thought that I wouldn’t find out. You’re some high and mighty madboy sitting in his lightning castle, lording over the rest of us from the madness place. ‘Oh ho,’” she puts on a melodramatic madboy accent straight out of a Heterodyne show, “ ‘those spark-less idiots scrabbling in the dirt will never suspect my vile machinations. Perhaps I’ll make them dance for my amusement after I’ve injected my mind-control devices directly into their cerebellums!’ Plenty of brains in your head, but no humility, you bastard!”

Collecting the two intact clanks leftover from her clock and stuffing them into her skirt pockets, Agatha stomps over to the French doors and throws them open. It’s starting to snow outside, big heavy flakes of it swirling around like so much confetti, which makes for a suitably theatrical exit when a draft of freezing air whips a gust of snow into the room as she storms dramatically into the courtyard. Agatha suddenly wishes she knew where her coat was, but she can’t stand to stay in the same room as Gil any longer. So he thinks she’s a spark? He thinks she’s angry now? She’ll show him angry.

“Agatha? Agatha!” Gil calls after her, following her through the doors. “I’ve apologized, I don’t know what else to say. Can you please come back inside?”

“I’m going home!” Agatha shouts over her shoulder. “You don’t need to call on me again, Herr Holzfäller.”

“But I didn’t mean to upset you–”

“Yes, you’ve said that!” Agatha wheels on him. “I don’t care what your intentions were.”

“But I–”

“You used me!” She howls, “To win a contest, like I was some specimen in a jar! Do you have any idea what that feels like? To be looked down on like that? Like, like some damaged, useless thing?”

“Uh,” Gil responds eloquently.

“I work so hard,” Agatha clenches her fists tighter. “I study, and I build, and I keep my head down. And maybe nothing I make ever works, but I try! And I contribute! And maybe I haven’t got the spark, but I have never looked down on anyone at this university for their failures!”

“Um,” Gil doesn't get the chance to respond.

“This is all a game to you! I know your type, you and Tarvek and all those sparks from Wittenburg. Pompous madboys who come to Beetleburg and treat the University like it’s their own personal lab!”

“Hey! I’m not some pompous madboy!” Gil insists.

“No, you are. You have no idea the doors that open for you, just because you’re gifted!”

“This is ridiculous! You are a spark too!” Gil hollers, and he looks like he’s on the verge of tearing his hair out in frustration. Behind them, something buzzes and chitters electronically. The half-built serving clank rattles out into the frigid courtyard, propelling itself along with the extra arms.

“Would Sir or Mad-Mad-Madame care to see the wine liii*iiiii*iiiiiii*iiiiiiiiist?” The clank shutters out.

“You built that!” Gil flings an arm towards the clank. “You are literally in the madness place right now!”

“Oh, I’m angry all right!” Agatha shouts right back.

“You are full on ranting at me!” Gil grabs her shoulders, and she’s about to punch him right in his smug, madboy face when he shouts, quite unexpectedly, “It’s wonderful!”

...

There’s a commotion outside that draws Aaronev’s attention away from Tarvek.

"What is that?" Aaronev throws open the door to the balcony, pacing out into the cold night air. Down in the courtyard, Agatha is shouting angrily at Gil. No, not shouting. Ranting. She's fully in the madness place, voice ringing with the kind of harmonics that usually set of alarm bells, and she's raging at Gil as snow falls around them like a melodramatic scene in an opera. Tarvek panics. Aaronev leans over the railing, transfixed by Agatha’s fugue.

Tarvek quashes down the part of him that insists he can be free of this mess if he just pushes his father over the railing. They’re only on the fourth floor, no certainty that a fall from that height would be fatal. His father would probably land in the carefully maintained row of evergreen shrubs just underneath the balcony, and even if Tarvek succeeded in offing the ruling Prince of Sturmhalten he’d have the Baron’s Questers and Grandma Terebithia to deal with – everybody got so tetchy about regicide these days, even if it was for a good cause.

"Ignore that, father,” Tarvek takes his father’s elbow and tries to guide him back inside the apartments, cursing the abysmal soundproofing in the student residences. “It's just party guests having an argument about–"

Aaronev snatches a gold button from the breast of his own coat and pops the casing off, revealing the tiny mechanism inside. It’s a miniaturized harmonics congruity gauge. The needle is shuddering traitorously in the red zone.

"It's her!" Aaronev hisses, gesturing to the spectacle in the courtyard. Agatha is still ranting, while it appears Gil is still trying to placate her rage. A half-disassembled serving clank from the party has joined them, reciting the names of various vintages of wine and cheeses that might complement the evening.

"That congruity detector is nearly as old as I am! It reads positive for any girl with the spark, it- it spiked whenever Anevka yelled at the servants!"

"Do not argue with me, boy, that girl is Lady Lucrezia's child. The command harmonics are a match!"

“Father, I talked to that girl. She’s a lab assistant, a nobody. She couldn’t be the lady’s child!”

“Then no one will miss her when we take her!” Aaronev spins on his heel and makes for the door of Tarvek’s suite. Tarvek follows, trying to stop his father. He switches tactics.

"You can't do this! If Dr. Beetle finds out you’re trying to kidnap one of his citizens, he won't show any mercy just because we're royalty. You'll end up in a jar in the main courtyard, and I’ll get stuck in one next to you!"

"We'll have the girl and be out of his town before Dr. Beetle is even out of bed. Tarvek, this is our family's destiny. We will bring Lucrezia back!"

Tarvek plants himself in the doorway. “It won’t work! Your machine nearly killed Anevka!”

Aaronev stops in his tracks, eying Tarvek suspiciously. “How could you know that?” he spits back.

“Isn’t it obvious? You show up in Beetleburg the week before finals and demand I come home because there’s been a ‘lab accident.’ You have her Smoke Knight with you!”

“Your sister–”

“You put your own daughter in that machine, knowing full well that it could kill her! From the sounds of it, the Summoning Engine nearly did! How do you know it won’t kill Agatha?”

The room falls silent for a moment.

“Agatha?” Aaronev repeats.

“Don’t do this–” Tarvek pleads.

“Agatha? Is that her name?” There’s a mad glint in his father’s eyes. “It will work this time. She is the holy child! Roya, send for the others on my ship!” Aaronev pushes Tarvek out of the doorway and marches out of the room.

Roya looks to Tarvek with a kind of broken resignation that tells him exactly how she feels about all this. Roya had been one of Anevka’s loyalists for years, even after Tarvek tried to bribe her away with a pay raise and a glamorous posting in Paris. Violetta had called Roya “old fashioned” and “too damn chivalrous for her own good,” but she’d always said so with a sort of affection in her voice that made it seem like maybe those qualities weren’t such a bad thing.

But Roya can’t disobey Aaronev.

"Roya, wait," Tarvek grabs her by the arm before she can disappear, and it's clear she's surprised by his speed but he doesn't give her time to think on it, and whispers, "Is my sister still alive?"

"Your father-"

"I won't ask you to stop following his orders, but tell me, is Anevka alive?"

Roya gulps. "She is clinging to life, barely. But yes, she still lives."

Tarvek mouths “I’m sorry,” before he stabs her right in the thigh with a hypodermic dart full of Cousin Beatrice’s Soporific Draught #4, with his own modifications to the formula of course. Who knew _lactuca_ could be such an effective additive? Roya doesn’t fight the draught, and she tips over right where she stands. Tarvek catches her before she can collapse onto a spindly side table, and silently rolls her unconscious form under a sofa. She’ll wake up in a few hours, hopefully when this is all over.

Tarvek slips out of the room armed with a few items from Roya’s tool kit. He has a princess to save.

* * *

**SCENE THE FOURTH: Transylvania Polygnostic University Campus, Evening**

“-and another thing! Stop following me!” Agatha shouts. Arms folded tightly against the cold, she can’t gesture as angrily or as broadly as she wants to, so she compensates by stomping angrily away from Gil Holzfäller, spark and reprobate supreme. The white-hot fury she’d felt minutes ago is dissipating in the frigid air like the clouds of steam formed by her breath. She’s made it as far as the North Humanities Quad, and if she cuts through the Department of Almost Certainly True History in the Speculative History Building, she can warm up as she trudges through the empty halls.

“I’m not following you,” Gil says, following approximately ten paces behind her. He’d followed her out of the courtyard of the Elytra Residences, trying to tell her how wonderful and exciting it was that she was a spark. And he’d kept following her across campus as she’d cursed at him, called him a cad and a scoundrel, and told him in no uncertain terms she’d be quite happy to never see his horrid, deceitful face again. “I’m just walking in the exact same direction as you, at the same pace. I suddenly find myself wanting to pay a visit to Clay Mechanical to make sure the spark girl who lives there made it back from her party safely. I did say I’d have her home by eleven.”

“I hate you!” She rages, but “I hate you” loses some of its bite when she yells it through chattering teeth.

It’s going to be a disaster if Adam and Lilith find out how the evening went. She’d been careful to meet Gil outside the smithy, hadn’t let him knock on the door and get her parents nervous that she would be going to a school event with a boy. She might have even lied just a little bit, and told them it was a study group she was attending. This evening was supposed to be about science, not stupid, stupid boys.

She approaches the side entrance to the Speculative History Building, the one where the door is nearly hidden by overgrown yew, and delivers a hard smack to the wooden frame. The latch in the door’s lock is too short to do its job properly, and a good smack to the frame just above the strike plate is usually enough to get the door to swing open. But tonight the door remains solidly locked. She looks down, expecting to see the well-worn brass hardware on the door, and instead sees a brand new handle. She slaps the frame a few more times and jiggles the new handle, but the door does not budge.

“Ugh.” She drops her forehead against the door’s cold wooden surface.

“Did you forget your keys in your jacket?” Gil asks from behind her.

“Shut. Up.” She doesn’t move from her spot against the door. Now she’ll have to backtrack, walk all the way around the Speculative History Building to get back on track to the university’s main gates. Then all the way back to her home. The evening could not get any worse.

Agatha feels something soft and warm drape over her shoulders. She looks up to see Gil, who has arranged his jacket so that it covers most of her back and sides. The fabric has retained a significant amount of body heat, and she angrily draws it closer as she shivers.

“I don’t forgive you,” she huffs.

“I don’t expect you to,” Gil says. “What I did wasn’t fair to you.”

“I’m still angry.”

“I’d be surprised if you weren’t.”

“I don’t need you to walk me home.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” he agrees. “But these streets are dangerous. I hear there are pompous madboys on the loose, looking for local girls to dupe with their, what was that term you used? ‘Vile machinations.’ I need a Beetleburg native to show me which alleyways to avoid, especially this late at night.”

Agatha lets out a snort of laughter at the last one. “I guess you do.”

Tarvek crashes out of the shrubbery next to them, looking absolutely frantic and panting like he’s sprinted all the way from the Elytra Residences.

“HelloNoTimeToExplainPleaseExcuseMe,” he stage-whispers as he shoves Agatha into Gil’s arms and wrestles furiously with the door handle.

“Tarvek, what the–” Gil is cut off as Tarvek slaps his left hand over Gil’s mouth. Tarvek’s right reaches into Gil’s vest pocket, retrieving a finger-sized cylinder marked with colorful text. Tarvek jams the device into the door’s keyhole, and with a puff of rust-colored smoke the lock disintegrates and door swings open.

“EveryoneInsideNowPleaseAndThankYouLet’sGoGoGo!” Tarvek ushers them through the open door, following right behind and shooing them down the hall.

“Hey! That was my last of Bunbury’s Oxidation Enhancers! I was saving that!” Gil objects.

“Herr Sturmvoraus, what are you doing?” Agatha tries to plant her feet, but Tarvek loops an arm through her arm and an arm through Gil’s arm and drags them along behind him. He doesn’t stop until he’s pulled them up two flight of stairs, halfway around the wing, and into an empty classroom where he locks the door behind him.

“What the hell is going on?” Gil moves to grab Tarvek by the arms, but Tarvek slips out of his hold and moves to push the teacher’s lectern in front of the door. “Tarvek, Tarvek! Stop! Snap out of it!”

“We don’t have much time,” Tarvek leans against the lectern, a solid oaken box, and gives a good shove so it fetches up just under the door handle, preventing anyone outside the room from turning it or gaining ingress. “It’s my father. He’s here. We have to get out.”

“What are you talking about?” Agatha asks. Tarvek turns to look at her and Gil, eyes wide with panic.

“It’s a long story. The short version is this: my father is crazy. He’s here in Beetleburg, on campus. And he thinks that you,” he points to Agatha, “are the key to reviving the Other.”

“What?” Agatha shouts, appalled and alarmed, and Tarvek shushes her.

“Not so loud!”

“So your father wants to kill me because he thinks I’ll bring back the Other?” Agatha asks, panic rising in her voice as well.

“Yes! Well, no, not right now. I mean, he does want to kill you, in a sense, but that’s because HE wants to bring the Other back.”

Gil stares at him skeptically. “How would that even work? Who in their right mind would want to bring the Other back?”

Tarvek takes a deep breath. “Like I said, he’s not in his right mind. Two weeks ago he attacked my sister, and I only just found out about it today."

"He attacked Anevka?" Gil cuts in. "How is she?"

"She's not... I don't know the specifics, but I think when he- that she-" Tarvek struggles to get the words out. "I don't know if she..."

"Why would your father attack his own daughter?" Agatha asks.

"He needs a host. He’s been trying to bring back the Other for years, and he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. Agatha, we need to get you away from the city as quickly as possible. I hate to say it, but I think our safest bet is going to be contacting Baron Wulfenbach.”

“But he’s a tyrant!” Agatha protests.

Tarvek nods. “A tyrant, yes, but the one with the most secure stronghold in Europa. I can’t think of anywhere safer than his Castle.”

“How are you going to get Baron Wulfenbach to come pick you up?” Gil asks. “It’s not like you left the castle on the best of terms.”

“That’s where you come in,” Tarvek points to Gil, but he’s cut off when Gil grabs the front of Tarvek’s shirt and nearly hoists him off the ground.

“How did you figure it out?” Gil gets right up in Tarvek’s face, nose to nose.

“Figure what out?” Tarvek tries to wriggle out of Gil’s grasp again, to utilize some of his Smoke Knight training, but finds it almost impossible.

“How did you figure out who my father is?” Gil’s eyes narrow.

“We can discuss Petrus Teufel later,” Tarvek spits the name out, like the words are poisonous and having to say them is physically hurting him. “For now we need to focus on Agatha!”

“What.” Is Gil’s reaction, as he lets go of Tarvek’s shirt and drops him against the lectern.

“WHAT?” Is Agatha’s reaction.

“What? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Tarvek turns his face away. “I did some digging after you had me thrown off the castle. I found out everything. The Baron must have taken you in after he killed your father, and hidden you away to prevent anyone finding out who you really are. You are clearly under Baron Wulfenbach’s protection. I need you to get in contact with him as soon as possible. Put in a good word for Miss Clay. Get the Baron to send one of his fastest ships to pick you up, and take her with you.”

“Wait, I’m sorry, your father is Petrus Teufel?” Agatha asks Gil. “As in, the Black Mist Raiders Petrus Teufel? Scourge of Europa Petrus Teufel?” She turns to Tarvek. “Did you say ‘Petrus Teufel?’ Because that’s what I heard.”

“Oh.” Something seems to click for Gil, as his face switches from confusion to a sort of forced, stern expression. “Oh, yes. My, uhhh, my father… Petrus Teufel. Alas, my deepest, darkest secret! My hidden shame! I trusted you, Tarvek, how could you just reveal it like that?” He shakes his fist at Tarvek rather unconvincingly.

“Gil, I…” Tarvek looks like he might break apart. “I never wanted to use this information against you.”

“Petrus Teufel?” Agatha asks once more, still hoping for clarification.

“And the cruelest stroke, to be so blackmailed by my best friend!” Gil clutches at his chest dramatically, glancing in Agatha and Tarvek’s direction to see if they’re buying his dramatics. While Tarvek looks devastated, Agatha is still in disbelief. “Oh my life! Oh my heart! Betrayal!”

Tarvek reaches out tentatively. “Can you ever forgive–”

“But you’re absolutely right, of course,” Gil drops the theatrics and barrels onwards, seizing Tarvek’s hand in his own. “Preventing your insane father from abducting a fellow student is much more important. We need to focus on Miss Clay right now. Do you have a plan?”

Tarvek perks up at that. “Yes, of course! Now, I think if we can get into the university’s steam tunnels,” he begins, but he’s interrupted by the sound of a door slamming in the hallway.

Tarvek goes pale. “We need to move,” his voice is strained, barely louder than a breath.

“Maybe it’s another student?” Agatha whispers hopefully. "The night watchman? Professor F-"

“TARVEK!” A voice roars in the hall, angry harmonics echoing down the corridor like thunder. “WHERE IS SHE?”

“Not the night watchman,” Tarvek blanches, “It’s time to go.”

The voice in the hall is joined by pounding footsteps, and then a banging on the door. “Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvoraus, I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE! OPEN THE DOOR!”

“Out the window!” Gil says lowly, crossing the room and throwing open the sash.

“Are you crazy? We’re on the third floor!” Agatha whispers, but Gil is already out and down on the ground and Tarvek is hustling her towards the window.

“We did this all the time in Paris,” Tarvek reassures her. “Don’t worry, he’ll catch you.”

“I don’t want him to catch me, I want to take the stairs like a normal– mph!” Agatha’s indignation is cut off as Tarvek stuffs the sleeve of Gil’s overlarge coat into her mouth and pushes her out the window. She flails as she drops the three stories straight down, but lands safely and solidly in Gil’s arms. He sets her upright swiftly and throws his arms out just in time to catch Tarvek.

“I can land by myself, thank you,” Tarvek huffs.

“Nothing but the best for you,” Gil sets Tarvek down. “Let’s get out of here.”

They take off running towards the University’s main gate, and they make it halfway across the South Humanities Quad before something cracks loudly behind them. A bolt of fizzling blue energy lances through the air, boiling a first-sized crater into the snowy, frozen ground not two paces to Gil’s right.

“Damn, that was close!” Gil jumps to avoid another shot.

“Is he aiming that _at_ us? On _purpose_?” Agatha stumbles as she turns to look over her shoulder.

“No, the death ray is his way of saying ‘hello’,” Tarvek grits out as he and Gil grab her under either arm and haul her upright, sprinting to get behind a statue of Dr. Tarsus Beetle’s grandfather, Scutellum Beetle, for some cover.

“I thought you said he didn’t want to kill me, at least not right now!” She wrings her hands. The next shot wings the statue’s flowing academic cloak, sending coin-sized chunks of stone raining down on them.

“You, yes. Gil and I are collateral damage!” Tarvek peeks around the statue to see if Aaronev is back on the ground yet. From the angle of that last strike, it seems like he’s firing out the window of the classroom on the third floor.

“B-but he’s your father!” she sputters.

“Tell that to him!” Tarvek ducks back down.

“Where is The Watch when you need them?” Gil grumbles. More bolts of energy impact ground on either side of the statue, churning up the fresh snow.

Tarvek reaches into a hidden pocket and pulls out a handful of brightly purple pellets. “Get ready to move in three seconds,” he says.

“What are those?” Gil eyes the pellets curiously.

“Cover,” Tarvek replies, and he lobs the pellets between the statue’s legs. In a second, the pellets have exploded into billowing clouds of purple smoke. Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek are on their feet and running again, ducking the wild shots that Aaronev fires through the screening smoke. They make it to the west entrance of Wright Annex and Gil kicks the door open. The trio scrambles inside and slams it shut behind them. Gil knocks a decorative suit of steam-powered armor in front of the door to block the way.

“How did he find us so fast?” Agatha gasps, hands braced on her knees, but she sees the answer melting off her shoes as soon as she asks. “The snow.”

“He’s following our tracks outside.” Tarvek confirms. “This is the first real snowfall of the season. He must have followed the trail of runoff from our boots in the Humanities Building.”

“He’ll keep tracking us if we don’t stop him.” Gil pushes the snow-damp hair out of his face and starts off away from the doors. “We’ve got to keep moving. Tarvek, what do you have on you?”

“A couple knives, some poisons, a blowgun. No firepower though.”

Gil pats his vest, checks a few pockets. “I’ve got a handful of Bunbury’s novelties and some tools.”

“No death rays?" Agatha glances between the two of them. "Really?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Tarvek shakes his head. “It’s a common misconception, really, that all sparks build death rays.”

“There’s a pair of chain gear bagpipes in display cases one floor up,” Gil turns them down the corridor that leads to the stairs. “We could use those as the base for an ultrasonic cannon, but I don’t think we have enough time to modify them on the fly to do any real damage.”

“I’ve got these,” Agatha produces the two little clanks from her dismantled clock. “I don’t think I managed to open these up back at the party, while we were working on that serving clank. They’ll probably still explode if I–”

The bay windows ahead of them burst inwards. Cold air floods the corridor, and the flurry of snowflakes whooshing through the opening produces an appropriately dramatic entrance as Prince Aaronev Sturmvoraus VI climbs over the broken sill, his coattails whipping wildly in the gust created by the sudden pressure differential.

“There’s nowhere you can run, girl,” Aaronev growls. “At last, at long last! I finally–”

Agatha screams and flings one of the overwound little clanks down the hallway at him. Aaronev regards the tiny clank at his feet derisively. “And what is this device meant to-”

It does exactly what it’s supposed to, which is to explode spectacularly. It has the added benefit of cutting off Aaronev’s villainous monologue. Plaster dust and chipped wood fills the hallway.

“Go, go, go!” Agatha backpedals down the corridor, Gil and Tarvek at either side. They crash through the nearest door, into a practice room with a grand piano and a floor to ceiling window facing a copse of gently smoldering flame maple trees. A dead end. “Do you think that stopped him?” Agatha asks.

“In all likelihood? No!” Gil responds. He picks up the piano bench and chucks it through the window, creating a brand new exit.

“It probably just made him angrier!” Tarvek agrees as they navigate the broken glass.

“Damn it!” Agatha curses, and Lilith never said anything about cursing while in mortal danger but Agatha is sure she would allow an exception in cases such as these. The three are off and running again, dodging the fizzling embers sifting gently down from the branches of the flame maples.

“We need a plan!” Tarvek says, checking over his shoulder as they clear the thicket. “He’s already up and following us. Gil, duck!”

“I have–” Gil ducks another shot from Aaronev’s death ray. “I have a semblance of a plan, but it’s dangerous and you’re not going to like it.”

“A semblance is better than nothing! Just do something!” Agatha commands.

“Alright! You two, keep running for the main gates, but make a detour around Mechanical Building 2!”

“What are you thinking, Holzfäller?” Tarvek starts, but Gil peels off as they round a corner and he disappears from view.

“I hope,” Agatha gasps as they jump over a row of empty planters, “that he knows what he’s doing!”

“I’m not sure he does,” Tarvek replies, “But that’s never stopped him before!”

“Tarvek, stop running!” Aaronev’s voice is closer now. Despite his age he’s moving almost as fast as Tarvek and Agatha, and he has the distinct advantage of not having to dodge death ray bolts. “Do not attempt to hide the girl from me!”

Agatha and Tarvek keep sprinting, plunging through a row of barren hedges to cut across the Engineering courtyard. Up ahead, they spot the edifice of Mechanical Building 2 – and the bright lights of patrol clank repair bay. Ranks of the clanks that comprise The Watch stand by the bay’s open door, silent and unmoving. They appear to be idling, with snowflakes gathering on their heads and shoulders.

“Of course!” Agatha charges straight for the clanks. “The Watch doesn’t have their ice cleats on yet! That’s why we haven’t seen any on campus all evening!”

“Agatha, wait,” Tarvek grabs her hand, “they might ask you for your student ID–”

“I’m counting on it!” Agatha pulls him along as she races to the nearest platoon of clanks. “Mr. Clank!” She calls, rapping her knuckles against one’s armored plating, “Wake up, Mr. Clank, oh, it’s terrible! There is an escaped specimen following us, it’s very dangerous!”

The clank whirs for a moment, eyes lighting up as it awakens. “IDENTIFY YOURSELF,” it commands.

“Agatha Clay, Student 8734195.”

“STUDENT 8734195. WORKING.” The clank repeats after her, as the machines on either side awaken in turn.

“IDENTIFY–” “IDENTIFY YOURSELF–” “–DENTIFY YOURSE–” “IDENTIFY–” Down the line more and more clanks echo the first clank’s orders, powering up and swiveling to face the source of the disruption.

“STUDENT 8734195,” the first clank repeats. “WORKING.”

“STUDENT 8734195” “STUDENT 8–” “-ENT 8734195” “STUDENT–”

“IDENTIFY YOURSELF,” a clank from the next rank over calls out.

“Let’s go!” Agatha whispers, darting around the buzzing, humming collection of clanks as they repeat her student ID number back and forth to each other. Tarvek follows, and they swing around the corner just as a bolt of death ray fire pings off the armor on the last clank in the row.

“INTRUDER,” the clank turns immediately towards the source of the blast. “IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR BE-” Another bolt from the death ray melts the optics in its faceplate. The sound of rapid death ray fire fills the courtyard as The Watch choruses “INTRUDER!” and the clanks spin up their pneumatic arm cannons. Enraged screaming and the unmistakable “pft-pft-pft” of at least twenty arm cannons firing at once join the chorus.

“Do you think THAT stopped him?” Agatha asks hopefully.

“It will at least slow him down,” Tarvek concedes. They keep running, weaving behind statues and down the colonnade that connects the Chemical Engineering Laboratory to the Engineered Chemistry Laboratory. They slip and slide across the frozen-over surface of the ornamental pond in front of the Limnology department, and hop three steps at a time down the stairs that descend towards the broad expanse of the University’s grand entrance quadrangle. There, across the cobblestones, past the rows and rows of (currently empty) jars, stand the main gates of the University, proud sentinels of generations of scholars.

“There’s no cover!” Agatha skids to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, looking around frantically. Indeed the quadrangle is as wide and flat as an athletic field.

“There’s nowhere else to go!” Tarvek takes her arm and pulls her along after him. “We’ll have to make a run for it and hope Gil’s plan works!”

They run through the snow, trying to keep their footing on the slick stones, and they’re halfway across the square when a telltale crackling splits the night. A bolt of death ray fire strikes the snow at Agatha’s heels.

“Stop right there.” Agatha and Tarvek spin to see Aaronev at the head of the steps, his death ray trained on their position. A tendril of steam rises from the overheated barrel, and the grip is hot enough to burn the skin of his right hand a raw-looking shade of red. In his left he holds the dismembered arm cannon from a patrol clank. Agatha takes an unintentional step backwards, and another shot boils away the snow just to her left, scorching the fabric of her skirt.

“No more running. No more tricks.” Aaronev descends the stairs slowly, limping from a nasty looking shot to his leg. “No more delays. Girl, come here!”

Tarvek pushes Agatha behind him, throwing his arms out to the side. “This has gone on long enough! I won’t let you hurt her!”

“Tarvek, I’m disappointed that you’ve chosen to go against me, but you can still redeem yourself. Help me subdue the girl, and I’ll consider letting you live.”

“You wouldn’t kill me. I’m your only son.”

“Wouldn’t I? You said it yourself, boy. I put my own daughter in that machine to bring Lady Lucrezia back. Do you think I wouldn’t trade you away too? It will be a pity to have to start over again, but with the Lady’s proficiency in biology and genetics, she’ll make sure that any future sons of mine are better suited to rule. Smarter. More loyal to their father.”

Aaronev is still far enough away that they’re having to shout most of the exchange across the snowy plaza, but he’s slowly making his way towards them. Tarvek’s mouth hardly moves, but Agatha can hear him whispering, “Do you still have that second little clank?”

“Yes,” she whispers back, clutching the lump of metal in her pocket.

“Good. He’ll tell you put your hands up. When he does, I want you to throw it at him as hard as you can, then get behind one of the jars.”

“You are expendable, Tarvek,” Aaronev calls, drawing closer by the moment. “Hand over the girl before I take you out of the equation.”

“What about you?” Agatha whispers, but there’s no time. Tarvek whirls around and grabs her by the upper arms. She squeaks with surprise.

“Alright, here she is,” he squeezes Agatha’s shoulders reassuringly, and pushes her towards his father.

“You’ve made the right choice, boy,” Aaronev gloats. “Now girl, walk towards me. Put your hands where I can see them.”

Agatha’s hands are hidden by the too-long sleeves of Gil’s coat. She clutches the overwound clank in the palm of her right hand, as tightly as she dares, shuffling towards Aaronev.

“Sleeves girl, roll up your sleeves. Tarvek! Her sleeves!” Tarvek slowly frees her left hand from the sleeve, then reaches for her right. Agatha draws her right arm back ever so slightly as the jacket cuff is peeled down to her wrist.

“Good girl, now–” Agatha pitches the little clank as hard as she can, and dives behind the nearest of the jars with Tarvek. The device arcs through the air– only for Aaronev to shoot it out of the sky with a bolt of electricity from the death ray. The little clank emits a high-pitched squeal as it falls to the ground, smoking but unexploded.

“Is that it?” Aaronev shouts. “Are you going to come quietly now, or do I have to resort to violence?” Agatha glimpses Tarvek loading a small dart into a tube held close in front of his chest where his father can’t see. He whips around the edge of the jar so fast Agatha is sure there’s something wrong with her eyes, but the next second Aaronev has fired the dismembered arm cannon and Tarvek is standing beside the jar, gripping his hand tightly as blood seeps from between his fingers. Shattered pieces of the blowgun fall to the ground around him.

“Agatha,” Aaronev keeps the arm cannon pointed at Tarvek. “It is ‘Agatha,’ isn’t it? Come out, or I’ll put another hole in my worthless son.”

“Don’t do it, Agatha!” Tarvek implores, shaking his head urgently. Another burst of cannon fire cracks against the ground at his feet.

“SILENCE!” Aaronev roars, and there is silence, for a moment. Nothing but snowfall and the crackle of energy in Aaronev’s death ray.

And then there is the sound of footsteps. Massive, thundering footsteps, and what sounds like distant hollering– until the hollering isn’t so distant, and Gil suddenly appears skidding down the stairs on the giant, gold-plated Transylvania Polygnostic University crest that had hung above the doors of Lab Complex No. 1, shrieking with manic glee as his makeshift toboggan ramps off the railing and goes airborne. At the apex of its fight he extends the crest’s jointed wings, one bat-like and one covered in slim metal feathers, and soars for a glorious moment of flight before the crest slams back to the snowy ground. His makeshift toboggan hurtles through the quad like a rocket, missing Aaronev by mere centimeters, until its momentum is finally arrested when the shield collides with one of the jars. Gil is ejected violently, rolling to a stop between Agatha and Tarvek.

“Gil!” Tarvek shouts, at his side in a flash.

“Herr Holzfäller!” Agatha runs to join them. Gil is sprawled on his side in the snow, bleeding from a gash over his eye and clutching his arm to his chest. Only it isn’t his arm he’s clutching– his eyes spring open, and the second he sees both Agatha and Tarvek beside him, he's on his feet and aiming the dismembered clank arm cannon Aaronev had been holding a moment ago right back at him.

It takes Aaronev a second to realize what’s happened, glancing down at his empty left hand, up at Gil, back at his left hand, then at Gil again. Rage turns his face an unhealthy shade of purple. “You think another brat like you evens the score?” he bellows.

“No, but I think he might!” Gil points back towards the direction of the stairs, and the familiar shape of Mr. Tock rising like a tidal wave against the darkened sky.

“HALT.” The booming voice of Mr. Tock echoes through the plaza, as do his thundering footsteps, and the other 20 odd meters of his bulk between the speakers in his faceplate and the soles of his great metal boots. The blindingly bright shoulder-mounted spotlights illuminate suddenly, one trained on the group of students and one trained on Aaronev. “IDENTIFY YOURSELF, OR BE DESTROYED.”

“Agatha Clay!” Agatha shouts, waving her arms. “Student 8734195!”

“Gil Holzfäller, Student 9372845!”

“Tarvek Sturmvoraus, Student 9372846!”

“Listen here you overgrown scrap heap,” Aaronev levels his death ray at the gargantuan clank.

“WORKING.” Mr. Tock rumbles.

“Come on, come on!” Agatha cheers.

“Move along, before I reduce you to slag!” Aaronev turns the dial on his death ray to maximum power.

“WORKING.”

“I’ve had enough of this! No more distractions!” Aaronev yells.

“WORK-” Mr. Tock is cut off as a blast of blue-white lightning explodes from Aaronev’s death ray, slamming into Mr. Tock’s abdominal section like a mortar’s blast, electricity crackling over his frame. The searchlights shatter, while the glowing optical sensors on his faceplate flare brightly before suddenly going dark. The massive figure of Mr. Tock slumps and settles into place with the groaning of heavy machinery settling uncomfortably on overtaxed joints.

“Mr. Tock!” Agatha screams.

“There,” Aaronev huffs, eyes bulging out of his skull in fury, harmonics fraying at the edges. “NOW. If we can dispense with ALL the THEATRICS…”

“You’re outnumbered,” Gil shouts, wiping the blood off his face with his free hand. “Three to one still. Drop your death ray, and we can negotiate the terms of a peaceful surrender on your part.”

“Peaceful surrender– HA!” Aaronev laughs, but it isn’t a joyous sound. It’s a cold, brittle thing, echoing sharply off the jars in the plaza. “Ha ha HA! Think again, boy. The cannon you’re holding is inoperable. I used the last of the pneumatic pressure reserve to remove a blowgun from my son’s treacherous hand.”

Gil looks down at the arm cannon held awkwardly in his grip, suddenly doubtful. “You’re bluffing,” he calls.

“Would I have taken my death ray off you to fire on that colossal waste of brass Dr. Beetle is so damn proud of if I wasn’t sure?” Aaronev gloats. Tarvek and Gil move a little closer together, making sure to interpose themselves solidly between Aaronev and Agatha. Aaronev smirks. “So chivalrous right up to the end, boys. Chivalry won’t save you now, though, because here is what’s going to happen. Gentlemen, I’m going to either kill or maim you, whichever option is less work for me. And you can die knowing you put up a good fight to keep the girl away from me. And you, troublesome girl, I am going to take you with me, and I am going to revive our Lady. Then the world will tremble when she is resurrected, as the glorious dawn of a new era begins. I have searched for so long in vain. But now! Now nothing stands in my way!”

As far as villain rants go, it’s quite mediocre. The most extraordinary thing about it is that Prince Aaronev VI does not notice the palm-sized scrap of clockwork and springs dragging itself across the snowy ground, leaving a straight trail from the spot where it’d been shot down by his death ray's fire, directly towards the massive booted foot of the unmoving Mr. Tock. Agatha, perhaps, is the only one to notice the progression of her tiny clank, and once she does she cannot take her eyes off of it (despite the horrible madboy waving a death ray around and shouting about his plans to destroy her and bring back… some Lady? The Other? He’d mentioned her mother’s name, her birth mother, and though "Lucrezia" was a popular enough name that perhaps he wasn’t referring to Agatha’s mother, but some _other_ Lucrezia, Agatha hadn’t had time to ponder how her birth mother did or did not fit into all this. It had been a long day).

On reaching the very base of the gargantuan clank, Agatha’s tiny mechanism unfolds a set of legs and a proper set of arms. It jumps most impressively, up over the “tread” of Mr. Tock’s boot, and disappears in the seams that made up the toe cap. There’s a flash of light there, so quick and so small that Agatha is sure she only caught it because she’d been looking intently for any sign of where her creation was going or what is was up to.

Moments later Mr. Tock roars back to life, servos spinning up and lights igniting as if he’d come off the slab just moments ago.

“STUDENT 8734195, ACCEPTED,” Mr. Tock declares. “STUDENT 9372845, ACCEPTED. STUDENT 9372846, ACCEPTED. ‘LISTEN HERE YOU OVERGROWN SCRAP HEAP,’ NOT ACCEPTED. PREPARE TO BE DETAINED.”

A massive brass hand swoops down from the sky, plucking Aaronev off the ground like a mouse. Aaronev howls and points his death ray at the great timepiece on Mr. Tock’s chest, but Mr. Tock is too fast for that. The clank pinches the death ray away from Aaronev with two surprisingly dexterous fingers. He then crushes it between those same two fingers, dropping the flattened remains of the death ray to the ground.

“Unhand me!” Aaronev squawks. Aaronev pulls some sort of blinking, glowing device from an inside pocket of his greatcoat, only to be shaken vigorously by Mr. Tock. The device falls to the ground, where it is stomped out by Mr. Tock with a muted explosion. “Unhand me at once! Do you know who I am!?”

Mr. Tock does not do as bid, nor does he seem to care who Aaronev is. With a graceful motion belying his size and bulk he leans down, unscrews the glass bubble of the nearest jar, and deposits Aaronev inside. Then with a twist of his tree-trunk like wrist the glass is screwed back on tight.

“SUBJECT ‘LISTEN HERE YOU OVERGROWN SCRAP HEAP,’ YOU WILL BE DETAINED UNTIL YOUR CASE IS JUDGED. AS IT IS NOW…” Mr. Tock whirs and clicks for a moment, accessing time and date information. “SATURDAY MORNING, DR. BEETLE WILL BE INFORMED OF YOUR DETENTION ON…” more whirring and clicking “MONDAY MORNING.”

Aaronev screams and pounds on the glass to no avail. Muffled phrases like “I’ll get you yet!”, “my glorious plans,” “rue the day you all opposed me,” and the classic “…and then they’ll see!” were discernible, but it appeared he had nothing of import to contribute.

“Do… do you think that will hold him?” Agatha asks tentatively.

“Y’know…” Gil eyes the glass, gives it a solid kick. Inside Aaronev froths with rage, throwing himself against the side of his prison. He succeeds in nothing more than leaving a smudge on the glass. “It just might.”

Mr. Tock leans down even further, extending a loosely held fist to the gathered students. “STUDENT 8734195. I BELIEVE THIS IS YOURS.” He uncurls his fingers, and there on the flat of his upturned palm is Agatha’s little clank.

“My clank!” An uncontrollable smile lights up her face. “It works!” The clank toddles down the length of Mr. Tock’s pointer finger and hops into Agatha’s outstretched hands. She turns it around lovingly, examining the casing, the limbs, the charring from the death ray strike, and the one cracked optical sensor on the faceplate. “I can’t wait to open you up and make improvements!”

“That sounds most exciting, but do we really have time for that now?” Tarvek asks, still wary of his father’s tantrum even with nearly ten solid centimeters of glass between them.

Agatha suddenly seems to realize something. “Mr. Tock,” she calls up to the gargantuan clockwork guard, “you said it was Saturday morning?”

“YES. AGATHA CLAY, YOU ARE… EARLY.”

“Oh no!” Agatha clutches the sides of her head. “It’s past midnight! Oh, my parents are going to be so worried!”

Gil puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Would they be more or less worried if you showed up with two gentlemen in tow?”

“B-boys?!” Agatha nearly shouts. “I’ve never even brought friends home, let alone boys! Lilith would– oh, oh no, oh Adam would not be happy at all!”

Gil turns to Tarvek. “Should I have said ‘classmates’ instead? Would that have been a better word choice?”

“Agatha,” Tarvek holds out a hand, the one that isn’t bleeding. ”You’ve had… a very frightening experience, just now. Gil and I are used to this sort of thing. Let us escort you home, and make sure you’re safe.”

“You’re still bleeding,” Agatha grabs the wrist of his bloodied hand. “And Gil has that cut on his forehead, we need to get you medical attention!”

Tarvek winces as Agatha gently tries to wipe away the blood with her sleeve. Well, it’s the sleeve of Gil’s coat, but she’s still wearing it. “I’m pretty sure my father missed anything vital. I’ll be alright until we– ow!”

Gil pulls a button-sized disk out of his pocket, with the words “Bunbury’s Instantaneously Expanding Handkerchief! Astound Your Friends! Confound Your Enemies! Charm Your Paramours With Your Thoughtfulness!” embossed in glossy red letters across the front. He flicks his hand and the disk unravels into a large, pink and white spotted hankie. “Patch him up while we walk?”

* * *

**SCENE THE FIFTH: Clay Mechanical, Some Time Quite Past Midnight**

“Agatha Clay, do you know what time it is?” the motherly voice comes through the doorway before the frame of Lilith Clay does, sweeping Agatha up in a crushing hug. “Do you have any idea how worried your father and I have been–?!”

“Nngh- Lilith! I’m fine!” Agatha struggles, and Lilith holds her at arm’s length to look her over.

“It is past midnight! Look at you, you’re covered in grease! Whose coat are you– where is yours? And your good skirt is– red fire, Agatha, is that a scorch mark? What happened at that study session you went to?” Lilith draws Agatha close again, and regards the two boys behind Agatha for the first time. The bulk of Adam Clay stands in the doorway behind Lilith, intimidatingly backlit by the glow of the smithy. “And who are these young men?”

Gil gives a friendly wave. He’s wiped most of the blood off his face, but “most” is not “all.” “Hello! Mrs. Clay, I presume? And Mr. Clay? We’re classmates of Agatha–er, of Miss Clay’s. We wanted to make sure she got home safely.”

“This is Herr Holzfäller and Herr Sturmvoraus. They rescued me!” Agatha manages to wriggle out of Lilith’s embrace.

“Rescued you? Rescued you from what?! It looks like they dragged you through an engine block!”

“It’s a long story, mother, but they’re injured and it’s freezing outside. Can they come in?”

“Are YOU injured?” Lilith looks Agatha over, her mismatched eyes scrunched in concern.

“Mother!”

“They’re– oh, yes, fine, bring them in.” Lilith ushers the three students through the smithy, down a tidy hallway, and into the kitchen where the air is warmer and the lighting is much better. Adam brings up the rear, hovering in the doorway of the kitchen and doing his best to look properly menacing and fatherly. Back in the familiar environs of her home, Agatha takes charge – she directs Gil and Tarvek to the wooden bench beside the stove, the warmest spot in the kitchen, and it’s a bit of a squeeze for the two of them to sit next to each other but they manage.

“Adam, can you please bring me the first aid kit from the bathroom?” Agatha asks, fussing over the boys. She peers closely at Gil’s forehead. “And the sewing basket, I think.”

Lilith moves to drag Agatha’s chair over from next to the window, and gets her first good look at the scorch mark on Agatha’s skirt under the brightness of the kitchen lights. A strangled sound escapes her. “Agatha Clay, is that a death ray burn on your leg?!”

“What?” Agatha swings around, pointedly trying to keep the burned fabric out of her mother's sights. Her efforts are unsuccessful. Quicker than she can blink, Agatha finds herself sitting in the chair with her foot in Lilith’s lap. Indeed there is a burn on her leg, a narrow red streak scored just above her ankle where the fabric of both her skirt and her stockings, and even the leather at the top of her boot had been burned away by a bolt of death ray fire that had come too close. The skin is starting to blister a bit, but the wound itself is nothing serious. If the bolt had struck a few centimeters to the right she would have been in trouble. She hadn’t even felt the shot graze her, what with the adrenaline and the chill and the other pressing concerns at the time.

“It’s nothing!” Agatha tries to pull her foot away, again in vain. “I didn’t even notice it, it’s not that bad!”

“I know a death ray burn when I see one.” Lilith’s brow is set in a steely expression. “The way the wool is scorched makes it pretty obvious someone was firing a repeating cylinder Grordbort Mark V, with anticlockwise rifling. Probably custom, almost certainly a spark, must have been royalty.”

Tarvek’s jaw drops. “Madame, how could you possibly know that?”

Lilith’s head swings up towards the boys. “Who was shooting at Agatha?”

“Mother!” Agatha tries again to tug her ankle out of Lilith’s grip.

“Who?” Lilith pins the boys with a glare. “Grordbort’s weapons are valuable collectables, but only a royal would have enough funds and influence to acquire one in good enough condition to shoot a beam this concentrated. And only a madboy would have enough hubris to have rifling added to an energy weapon. So who was firing at my daughter?”

“It was my father,” Tarvek says gravely. “He was attempting to abduct Agatha–”

“-but we stopped him!” Gil adds quickly, when he sees the murderous look that flashes through Lilith’s eyes. “Once we found out he was trying to take her, we all ran. He chased us all the way across campus, but we tricked him into attacking Mr. Tock. He’ll be stuck in a jar ‘till Monday at least.”

As Gil and Tarvek describe the trio’s narrow escape from Aaronev Sturmvoraus, the color drains out of Lilith’s face. Adam returns with both the first aid kit and the sewing basket, in time to hear the tail end of the story.

“He thought he’d won, at that point,” Tarvek says soberly. “He’d caught us defenseless, totally without cover. He started gloating about it, too, and I’m sure you can imagine what that was like. About how he’s going to ‘kill us’ and ‘take Agatha’ and ‘finally bring his plans to fruition.’ For a second I also thought he’d won.”

“And then her little clank– the one she must have modified at the party while we were rebuilding that server– her little clank was somehow able to jumpstart Mr. Tock!” Gil gestures excitedly with his hands as he talks, as if he’s discussing the thrilling plot twists of the latest Heterodyne Boys novel. “It was incredible! Agatha, you still have it, right? Oh, there it is!”

“I don’t think–” Agatha begins, but the little clank of hers has already climbed out of her pocket. Surveying its surroundings, and the five sets of curious eyes on it, the device promptly jumps off her lap and scuttles beneath the grandfather clock that stands beside the door.

“You built that?” Lilith asks, pushing her glasses up and rubbing her eyes.

“Yes,” Agatha admits guiltily. “But it only started working after it was hit by one of the death ray bolts. It needed a massive dose of electricity to activate it.”

Adam shoots an inscrutable look at Lilith.

“Your father and I... need to have a talk. Don’t… please don’t go anywhere, don’t open the door if anyone knocks. We’ll be just upstairs if you need us.” Lilith looks at the boys seated next to her stove, and adds, “Can you attend to their injuries by yourself?”

Agatha nods seriously. “It will be just like in the vivisection lab.” Adam sets the sewing and first aid kits down on the kitchen counter, and he and Lilith leave the kitchen.

Filling the kettle and setting it on to boil, Agatha takes a deep breath for the first time since the three of them had arrived at her home. She fetches the first aid kit open and starts to dig through it for the supplies she’ll need to see to Gil and Tarvek’s wounds. The routine of it is comforting, a simple task. An easy repair. There’s quiet in the kitchen as she preps her supplies, only the sound of wood crackling in the stove and her parents’ muffled footsteps upstairs.

Gil breaks the silence. “Your parents are Punch and Judy?”

“What?” Agatha nearly fumbles the small bottle of disinfectant she’s holding. “No, no, no no no no. My parents are Adam and Lilith Clay. I mean, they aren’t my birth parents, but they raised me. I’ll introduce you to them properly when they come back downstairs.”

“You have to admit, there’s a resemblance,” Tarvek says diplomatically.

“Your parents are obviously Punch and Judy.” Gil stares at her in disbelief. “Have you never seen a Heterodyne show, ever?”

“I’ve read the books!” Agatha’s face turns red. “They don’t paint a very flattering portrait of con–” She cuts herself off, not willing to divulge her parents’ secret.

“Of constructs?” Tarvek supplies. “No, they don’t. But it’s their secret. We’re not going to reveal it, are we Gil?”

Gil shakes his head. “Of course not. My father is a–”

“You don’t have to say it,” Agatha pushes her chair closer to the two boys and pulls the first aid kit into her lap as she sits. She holds a clean rag soaked in disinfectant to the cut on Gil’s forehead, and says softly, “I understand why you want to keep your father’s name a secret. I promise I won’t tell anyone about Petrus Teufel. Now, can you hold that in place while I check Tarvek’s hand?”

Gil winces at the sting, taking the rag from her. “About that…”

Unwrapping the instantaneous hankie from around Tarvek’s hand, Agatha begins to clean away the blood. “I really am sorry, Gil,” Tarvek says. “I never, ever wanted to hurt you. I panicked, and I tried to use something you couldn’t control against you.”

“It’s okay,” Gil says, eyeing the wound on Tarvek’s hand. It’s a good thing the arm cannon that shot him had been disconnected from the pneumatic pumps in the torso of the clank it’d been torn off of, or Tarvek might have lost a few fingers. As it stands, one or two might be broken, and there’s shrapnel in his palm, but it doesn’t look like any nerves are damaged. The bones will heal, and the skin will grow back. “I have a confession to make. Petrus Teufel isn’t my father.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Agatha sighs.

“WHAT?” Tarvek’s shock nearly propels himself out of his seat, and it’s only Agatha and Gil’s insistent hands on his shoulders that keep him in place.

“I’m not done treating your hand!” Agatha bristles. “At least let me finish picking the bits of blow dart pipe out!”

“What do you mean, your father _isn’t_ Petrus Teufel?” Tarvek whispers angrily. “And don’t you dare tell me that nonsense about the sausage-making spark is the truth, or I’ll, I’ll–”

“It’s Baron Wulfenbach. The Baron is my father. My real name is Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.”

“What?” is Agatha’s response.

“Baron W– the Baron… are you sure it’s not Petrus Teufel?” Tarvek asks. Gil nods, and Tarvek grabs Gil’s face with his non-bleeding hand, examining his nose, his eyes, the lines of his jaw. “Sweet lightning. It is him, isn’t it?”

“’fraid so,” Gil says with an apologetic smile. “Not exactly something I can control, is it?”

Tarvek releases Gil and sinks down in his seat, a dazed look on his face. "It all makes sense now. That's why... all this time... and in Paris?" Gil nods. “On the castle?”

“He told me after we went snooping,” Gil confirms.

“After we… oh,” Tarvek sighs, "oh, I understand. It would have been so much easier if you really were a Teufel. How inconsiderate of you, turning out to be a Wulfenbach after all these years."

Agatha looks between the two of them, confused all over again. “I don’t understand. Isn’t it better that his father's the Baron? Isn’t that preferable to his father being a deranged spark hell-bent on conquering or destroying all of Europa? Unambiguously preferable?”

Tarvek snorts, and then he giggles, and then he breaks out in hysterical, involuntary bursts of laughter. He runs a hand through his hair. “You tell me, Heterodyne Princess. Lucrezia Mongfish tried to conquer Europa nearly twenty years ago with slaver wasps and boulders raining down from the sky, and she was your mother.”

“N-no?” Agatha touches the trilobite locket at her throat. “No, that’s not–”

“Here.” Tarvek retrieves the copy of “Trelawney Thorpe, Spark of the Realm, and the Mongfish Monster Menagerie” from his coat pocket. The binding looks a bit crushed, and the last several dozen pages are pinned to the back cover by a nasty, sharp bit of shrapnel. The front of the book is in fine enough condition though, and while it’s difficult to flip through the pages one-handedly Tarvek manages to locate the character portraits. He pushes the book into Agatha’s lap. “That’s Lucrezia Mongfish. She was your mother, wasn’t she?”

Agatha studies the illustration with dawning comprehension. She pulls the locket from her neck and clicks it open, revealing the two miniature portraits inside. Bill and Lucrezia, her mysterious birth parents. Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish.

The kettle on the stove sputters and whistles. Agatha does not rise to remove it. In the doorway to the kitchen, Adam and Lilith stand in open-mouthed shock. The first to notice them is Gil.

“He’s, uh,” Gil gives Tarvek a little shake as he addresses the Clays. “He’s hysterical right now, probably in shock. Doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“No,” Agatha holds Tarvek’s injured hand lightly in her own. She sets her locket down gently, reverently, atop the page of portraits in the open book, and takes up Gil’s hand. She turns to the people who raised her, who have loved her since the day they met her – to her parents – and her voice is small, so small as she says, “I think. Maybe. We need to have a talk. C-can we talk?”

Adam nods solemnly, and steps into the kitchen to remove the shrieking kettle from the fire. Lilith draws two more chairs up to the group of nervous, injured children, and does what she does best.

“Of course.” She draws Agatha into her arms, and then the two boys that Agatha won’t let go of. “Where do you want me to begin?”


End file.
